The Iconograpghy of the Album Cover

Some interesting points that I found from the article 'The Iconography of the Album Cover' are:


- The artist can use inspiration from things that they find interesting like books, films etc. It doesn't have to be music-related.


This was interesting to me because the fact that the artist's inspiration doesn't have to be music-related is unusual since the album art could almost be anything and almost doesn't have a limit to what the product could end up being.


- 'I tend not to think of designs in terms of genre.' Quote from an interview in the article with Julien House.


I believed that album art was restricted creatively depending on the genre and that is why this quote intrigued me and typically you would expect a certain design or colour scheme. For example, for a rock band's album art, we would expect to see the use of a medieval-horror font, the main colour is black and occult based imagery to give it a heavy, mysterious feel.


- The album cover can be self-referential.


This point wasn't new to me however, the phrase 'self-referential' was what stood out to me. This is because people would usually see it as copying when we see an album that looks awfully similar to another artist's album cover as well.