Album artwork is the image on the packaging of a commercially released audio recording. In the early 1900s, records were sold in plain paper sleeves. In 1938, Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as the first art director, establishing the concept of album artwork. In the 1960s, the Beatles popularized unconventional album artwork designs featuring photographs. As technology advanced, album artwork became more detailed and could incorporate shocking or unconventional images to promote albums.

2. What is album artwork?
• Album Artwork is the front of the packaging of
a commercially released audio recording
product, or album

3. Early History
• Around 1910, when records were now taking
over the previous phonograph
cylinders, records were being sold in brown
paper or cardboard sleeves. These were
usually plain but sometimes had the name of
the manufacturer printed on the front.

4. Nutcracker Suite
• In 1909, Tchaikovsky's ‘Nutcracker Suite’ was
released. This was said to have had a ‘Special
Design’ on the packaging. Even though we
know this information, it is unknown of what
the actual special design was.

5. Alex Steinweiss
• It wasn’t until 1938 that record labels decided
to start looking at the idea of album artwork.
The first people to really look at it were
Culumbia Records, who in 1938, employed
Alex Steinweiss as Art Director.
• To date, Alex Steinweiss is still credited with
the invention of Album Artwork and the
concept of Album Cover.

6. 1940’s
• By the late 1940’s, most record albums
released my a major music label was being
sold in a colourful paper sleeve. Some would
have been classic artwork where as others
would have been original designs. They said
that the artwork was meant to represent the
mood and feel of the music

7. Album Artwork in the 50’s
• In the 50’s the artwork didn’t really change much
from the previous decade. More LPs were started
to be released in cardboard sleeves, meaning
artwork could start to be more detailed.
• The big artists in the 50’s for album artwork were;
• Reid Miles for Blue Note
• Burt Goldblatt for Savoy & Bethlehem
• David Stone Martin for Norgan and Verve
• William Claxton for Pacific Jazz.

9. The Beatles
• When ‘The Beatles’ landed in the 60’s they
brought a whole new element to album
artwork that had barley ever been seen
before. They were using pictures a lot more
than had been used previously. They were
also starting to use more unconventional
ideas. These can be seen on the albums
‘Abbey Road’ and ‘SGT. Peppers Lonely Hearts
Club Band’

10. New Unconventional Ideas
• With the new element being brought to album
artwork in the late 60’s, other artists decided to
follow the example set by The Beatles but see how
far they could push the boundaries. Pictures of half
naked women started appeared, like the one used on
the album ‘Blind Faith’ by the band of the same
name. These ideas were shocking around this time
and used to grab the attention of people browsing in
record shops.

11. The CD
• In the early to mid 90’s we started to see the
increase in popularity of the Compact
Disk, better known to use now as a CD. The
new ‘Digipak’ was being used regularly, a
combination of cardboard and plastic and
brought along with it a whole new range of
album artwork.

12. 90’s to the 21st Century
• Although there aren’t many differences
between artwork in the 90’s to how we see it
today, we have gained a lot of technology
along the way which has moved album
artwork on more than can be seen to the
naked eye.

13. 90’s to the 21st Century
• Here we see artwork from the 90’s and art
work from the modern day.
1996 2010

14. 90’s to the 21st Century
• Even though both images are made on a computer we
can see a very big difference in the quality of the
images
• In the 90’s shocking images still weren’t being used, as
we see in the artwork fro 1996, the appearance of
regular art was still being used. However when we look
at Relapse from 2010 we see a mans face being made
from prescription drugs and the whole artwork being
made from ideas from medication. The details are in
the form of a prescription (bottom left) and the actual
CD is made to look like the top of a pill bottle.

15. Shock Album Covers

16. Famous Album Covers