Comments on: Sleevage!

By: eric

eric — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 21:42:11 +0000

I agree. The design should definitely match the music, and in many cases I think you’re right, simple is better, but Kanye West’s covers I think are actually pretty good – especially when you consider how ludicrous some rap covers look these days. I don’t understand the constant use of cluttered text and terrible cheesy fonts. I get the whole money and bling thing, but it just seems like there’s a lot more creative ways to convey rap music. That’s why I still appreciate current rap artists like The Roots, Q-Tip, Mos Def and Mr. West who clearly spend a lot of time on their cover images.

By: frizbee

frizbee — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 21:46:31 +0000

Wow, good question. I guess, in a sense, it’s a bit more important for CD cover art to stand out, because it’s a smaller medium. So if you don’t want your CD to get lost in a sea of different covers, you’re gonna want yours to stand out above the rest. Which doesn’t necessarily mean that it has to be bright and colorful or chaotic. Sometimes the most basic covers can stand out even more. The simplicity of a NIN cover is more appealing to me than the colorful cover of some Kanye West CD. But, at the same time, I guess the same has to be said for old school album covers as well. Sure, they’re larger and more visible. But, again, it’s all about quality and not quantity. Bilboards are huge, but they all tend to just sort of fade into the background, don’t they? Until just the right one smacks you in the eye and gets your attention. I’m also a firm believer that any album or CD’s cover art should fit the overall vibe of the music as well. If the music is more mellow, I wouldn’t want the cover to have some kind of day-glo orange typeface over some cluster of images.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:33:50 +0000

Frizbee – glad you’re enjoying Sleevage as much as I am. I agree w/ you regarding the importance of cover art. I’d be interested to know what you and anyone else reading this thinks about CD cover art versus Album cover art. In other words, do you think cover art isn’t as important as it once was since the images on a CD jewel box insert are smaller than they used to be on Phono Album’s cover or do you think it’s more important because it is smaller and has to cut through the clutter? Let me know.

By: frizbee

frizbee — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:41:06 +0000

That’s awesome! The cover art is a huge part of what draw my attention to an album. A good c-d with bad cover art is forgivable, but a bad c-d with amazing cover art is such a shame. I plan on spending the rest of the day on this site.