Vintage Album Covers

Discovery Record Album Cover – ELO

 

Album cover art has become an important part of pop culture since the late 1930s when Alex Steinweiss, the Art Director at Columbia Records designed the first record album cover which included cover art. As the album cover has evolved into a key marketing tool for the vinyl record album, it has also increasingly become an expression of the musicians’ artistic intent. Musical artists such as the Beatles, Cat Stevens, Molly Hatchet, and Pink Floyd have taken great interest in what goes on the cover of their albums and have tried to see that reflects the artistic intend of their music.

As album cover design has become more and more important some artists, Hipgnois, Paul Raymond Gregory and Glen Wexler, to name a few have specialised and/or became famous  for their album cover artwork. The creative talents of these fine illustrators and photographers have been used to produce a vast array of notable album covers.

houses of holy record album cover – Led Zepellin – designed by Hipgnois

It is this wonderful art from the album covers of vintage record albums that this website seeks to display and discuss. In many cases this album cover art work will be from iconic record albums of well know artists, but we seek to call attention to the album art of other, less well know artists who also have amazing album covers.