Cover Art By: - New Music Graphics - COP Research

For my research I read ‘Cover Art By:’ - a collection of interviews from designers who create album covers and record sleeves. The questions asked in this book are incredibly applicable to my essay, touching upon topics such as how relevant album covers are in the era of streaming music. Here are all the quotes that I found which I thought will be useful for my essay

• ‘An album cover is the initial moment of the record. It’s the doorway into the music’ - Peter Blake

Adrian Shaughnessy Quotes

• ‘music became a commodity … they were actually encouraging the audience not to place any value in the package they were buying’
• ‘The major labels still commission cover art, but its rare to find examples with any resonance or originality. When we do encounter meaningful cover art, it’s usually because of strong-minded musicians demanding a visual corollary to their music’
• ‘we live in an era where the demand for music - in both its recorded and live forms - has never been greater. But music ‘consumers’ no longer want to acquire music in the traditional manner, and the record industry is not set up to deal with this demand from a mass audience’
• ‘Left to their own devices, the big labels are generally unwilling to stray from the safe formula of glamorous and heavily styled artists’ pictures and retail - friendly layouts’ 
• ‘diminishing record sales mean that money no longer exists for adventurous packaging or innovative art direction’
• ‘the simple fact that the traditional primacy of the record cover as the principal visual component of a band or musician’s image no longer holds true. When the great album covers of the past exerted their magic it was because they were all there was. Today there are many ways to experience music - TV, the internet, live gigs, movies, festivals, clubs, countless radio stations and even mobile phones. The result is that the album cover is now only one of many platforms for the visual expression of a band’s identity. And for a new generation growing up in an era of downloading, the record cover is increasingly likely to be viewed as an irrelevancy’ 
• ‘Cover art is still valued and still regarded as an integral part of music in the world of micro-labels. These small independent labels, often run by one or two individuals, have no money to commission lavish promotional campaigns for their records, and instead rely on a combination of word of mouth, websites and beautifully crafted, heavily coded album covers to announce their presence’
• ‘the sleeves of the new micro-labels are generally produced in tiny runs, often handmade and nearly always visually daring and inventive’
• ‘the independent sector distances itself further from the major labels by a rugged determination not tom lose the material aspect of music’
• ‘I’ve never believed you can listen to music devoid of visual reference anyway’
• Jon Wozencroft - ‘you need some kind of holistic, reconciling agent alongside the music, some editorial aspect that functions as a gentle storytelling device alongside the invisible force of the music.’
• ‘For a new generation growing up with downloaded music, the album cover and the CD package are already going the way of the horse-drawn carriage.’
• John L Walters - ‘ However much designers want to create design for music, the fear remains that the album cover - perhaps albums themselves - may prove to be a historical blip, a short detour in the long history of music. The Rite of Spring didn’t need sleeve design, nor did Duke Ellington’s East St. Louis Toodle-Oo.’
• Jeff Jank - ‘I buy lots of white labels and downloads, they don’t have any packaging or artwork. So I think its either zero artwork or incredible packaging: the stuff in between is bullshit isn’t it?’
• ‘And for the children of the digital realm, this new ‘media materiality’ is every bit as tangible as a dusty album cover from 1973. 

Interview Quotes 

• Ian Ilavksy - ‘the purpose of the cover art is to establish a context for the sounds contained within.’
• Thaddeus Herrmann - ‘ Covers should always go with the music. It rarely happens that some kind of visual label identity is so strong that it can represent different artists’ output. We always approach it the opposite way. Having said that, of course we do like certain things more than others. Personally, a strong yet simple photograph does much more than sophisticated font trickery. However, thats just me.’
• Klas Augustsson - ‘As long as music is sold physically, the design and packaging will matter. An image - world brings something to musical experience, and there is always the commercial factor and the way a congenial cover helps the music to find its audience. But if the physical object is marginalised, or disappears altogether, young designers may have to find other ways of expression than cover design, I’m afraid.’
• James Goggin - ‘I grew up with  vinyl and CDs, even cassettes, and discovered many bands purely on the strength (or oddness) of their cover art.’
• James Goggin - ‘I somehow don’t feel like I ‘own’ the music unless I have a tangible version.’
• James Goggin - ‘It came with an ‘interactive booklet’ consisting of extra photography, links to printable PDF posters on Matador’s website and full production credits. In itself it was poorly put together and took some messing around in iTunes to make it work. But I really think labels and companies like Apple should do more of this: include print-quality PDFs or jpegs with digital releases, additional material, videos etc.’ - more on p.72
• Jan Kruse - ‘I don’t hold out much hope that there will be a need for good cover graphics in 10 years time. That’s one reason why we are running our shop. People will always need clothes and things like pictures and posters for their homes to make them feel good. Of course, music will also be sold, but I am not sure if labels will still be distributing it on LP or CD.’
• Jason Kedgley - ‘Branded bands… kinda goes against being a musician/producer/artist, for me. The last thing you would want is the awful logo that you had last time on every piece of music or art that you make. With Underworld, it’s always been about making something new.’
• Jeff Jank - ‘Another concern is what it looks like as a 150-pixel JPEG? Something that would probably seem insulting to the cover designers of the past.’
• Jeff Jank - ‘the method of putting an image or a package to music changes entirely.’
• AS - “You invite viewers to your website to download album artwork for free. Is this a way of adding a visual component to the digital download?’
• John Twells - ‘Yes in a way, we also want people to enjoy the artwork we create, it’s a really important part of what we do.’
• Michaela Schwentner - ‘It’s the first contact you have with the product and it should tell you something about the music and the label. Because there are so many new releases, you have to define yourself by your visual appearance. It’s like a business card; a reference to our work and our intentions.’
• Lawrence English - ‘I think that some sound can be very powerful with the visual senses turned off - I can speak personally about a number of concerts I have experienced in pitch-black settings. That said, for a CD, the experience of buying and, for the most part, listening to it is mediated by the environment of the home or street (not a concert hall), so it’s a very different proposition, and hopefully the art completes that setting. 
• Taylor Deupree - ‘design also has there ability to bring in new listeners who may appreciate the visual aesthetic as they see it sitting on the shelf in a record store.’ - p. 191
• Mattias Nilsson - ‘I would say that the Kning Disk series has a certain recognisable look. The individual releases could, in theory, look different from product to product, but since there is just one illustrator (me) there is obviously a certain resemblance here also - a Kning Disk look emerges. But apart from the look itself I hope, and consider it very important, that you will be able to feel the care behind the package when you hold it in your hands. I want it to be a unique and tactile sensation.’