YOU CAN'T MISS: Album Design and Inspiredology

This week on the Media Bistro Unbeige blog, there's a post about Michael Carney winning the Grammy for best packaging design for The Black Keys 'Brothers' (show on the right). First of all, I had no idea that was a category, but that's awesome. While I think the album cover is fairly funny, I wasn't entirely impressed with it. That is until I read that the actual CD has heat-sensitive ink that changes colors. Now that's pretty cool.



The site I would like to feature this week is Inspiredology. I came across the site while looking for some other great album cover designs. They offer a lot of innovative designs, tutorials and videos. They also have some great articles and information about web design, which should come in handy as I start working on my portfolio site this semester. But sticking with the theme of album covers, they have a listing of the top 99 album covers. I have a lot of interest in music-related design, especially band posters. There's such a unique art form to it. It's nice to know you can win a Grammy for it though. Below are my favorites.

Kanye West - Graduation: I'm a fan of just about everything Kanye does, but I really do love this album cover. This album was the third of his great trilogy (College Dropout, Late Registration and Graduation), all of which featured the "Kanye bear." I just love how it goes outside the conventions of most rap artists. I mean, what other rapper would dare to put a stuffed animal bear on their album cover?

Jack's Mannequin - Everything in Transit: I really just love the illustration on this cover. I love anything non-conventional. It's so easy to just throw a profile shot of the artist on the album cover and call it a day, but I appreciate artists willing to take the time to make their album cover a work of art. It's also easy to go over the top with the covers. I think this one is a great middle ground. It's a very subtle illustration that gets the point across.

Bright Eyes - The People's Key: My parents pre-ordered the Bright Eyes album for me for Valentine's Day. You could say they're pretty great... Anyway, Bright Eyes/Conor Oberst usually does a lot of creative things with the packaging of the CD. This one had a tri-fold flap and then a separate envelope that contained the actual CD. Neither the album art or CD art contain the band name. I'm assuming the flames come from the track "Firewall" but who knows. I think it looks pretty cool though.