Design is one of those things that (in the end) can affect our decisions in such a way that it can make us, or stop us, from purchasing something we didn't purposely go out to buy. For example, there is a film you want to see back from the 80's, so the chances are it's been converted into DVD by several companies. You go out to the shops, and you have two options: #1 costs $15 and has terrible artwork, #2 costs $20 and has beautiful artwork. From what I've seen and my own experience, the majority of us would spend the extra five bucks (or pounds in my case!) and buy the more expensive copy, simply because it looks nicer. Typically, the exact same thing happens with music albums; the nicer the artwork, the more they sell.

Due to song and album downloads (iTunes in particular) a lot of people no longer buy the actual album, which is a shame because you don't your own copy of the artwork. However, artwork is still a big part of the album, and many artists and bands still fork out a few grand to get a nice one designed. Typically, due to the amount of albums released every year (any one know the rough estimate?), design trends tend to pop up, just like we see in graphic design and web design.

I have put together a huge collection of some great artwork from this year (that's 2009 for the people that are reading this in 2010 and so on!) specifically for this article. We will be looking at how different artists and bands use different trends to help sell their albums and make them stand out from the crowd; if they do at all! We have a collection of all kinds of different trends, such as: portrait, photo manipulations, grunge, image-based, type-based, black and white, minimalistic, digital, hand-drawn and vector art.

Design Trend: Portraits

Portrait photography is great direction to head in for solo artists; however it has never been a big thing for bands and groups. The portrait helps customers put a face to the name, making them more aware of the artists, their songs, and their latest album (probably the one they're looking at!). Portraits in album artwork always tend to be close-up macro shots, usually of the artists face; this completely fills the area, meaning the customer/viewer is focusing their full attention on the artist.

Lady Gaga

Lady Gaga has done tremendously well since bringing out her album; several of her songs are played over and over on the radio here in sunny England and I think it's safe to say a lot of the listeners know what she looks like; mainly due to the album cover.

La Roux

Leona Lewis

Michael Buble

I love the style of this shot; it has great depth. The yellow ribbon/tape is a great addition to the overall feel of the photograph and all combined makes a pretty awesome album cover!

Miley Cyrus

Design Trend: Photo Manipulations

Photo Manipulations are a great way to make an album pop out - it suggests the type of music the artist or band produce, and if done well can generally increase sales.

Paloma Faith

Spandau Ballet

I had a hard time deciding which trend category to put this on; the type plays a big part, it's very minimalistic and it's partly image-based. However, I decided to go with photo manipulation. From what I can see it perfectly combines flowers, a portrait, feathers/wings and mountains. The color scheme alone is sure to attract some attention!

Wolfmother

Arctic Monkeys

Stereophonics

Imogen Heap

This dark and superb photo combined with some elegant typography makes for a great piece of artwork. The realistic glow lights up the portrait, adding depth and tremedous shadows to the focal point of the cover.

Design Trend: Grunge

Just like other graphic design projects and web design, grunge is a great way to add depth and interest to album artworks. Although it is more commonly used by bands, it works just as well for solo artists; however it does, in the end, all come down to the genre of music the band or artist produces.

Green Day

Kesha

Paramore

Another one I struggled to categorize! It's very minimalistic and uses a great photograph, but there's no way I could rule that lovely subtle grunge background texture!

Shakira

Yo La Tengo

This ones a little different to other grunge album covers; although it does use subtle noise in the background image, the main area of grunge comes from the rusty cassette tape. It's so simple but it is an incredibly interesting cover.

Design Trend: Image-Based

A powerful photograph could be all it takes to increase an albums amount of sales. Scroll down and you'll find a couple that are strong enough to cope as a cover without any use of typography whatsoever!

Biffy Clyro

It's covers like this that make you pick the album up for a closer look; the abstract shapes by the kites and the burning table (I think?) in the background and keep you interested for minutes on end!

Mumford & Sons

Sting

The Dirty Projectors

YeahYeahYeahs

Some images are so powerful you don't even need any typography. In fact, if it's powerful enough, you might even be better off with no typography anyway; it tends to make the customer pick the album up to see which artist or band it is by. What you see above is an incredibly awesome shot taken during an uncooked egg was being squeezed in the fist of a females hand - if I saw that in the shop I would most defeinitely have to pick it up!

30 Seconds to Mars

Brandi Carlile

Noisettes

Robbie Williams

Robert Earlkeen

Design Trend: Type-Based

Just like the image-based album trend, powerful typography can sometimes be enough all by itself. It works in the exact same way a typography based web design or poster works!

Florence and the Machine

I know exactly what you're thinking... "why is this categorized under type-based?". Well, the white, handwritten-style typography set on that thick black border is dying to be looked at. It makes the artwork so much more interesting and unique compared to the hundreds if not thousands sitting in the same shop.

Foo Fighters

Jamie Cullum

Lily Allen

I love this album artwork. Fantastic color scheme, fantastic composition, fantastic typography and most importantly fantastic photography. Need I say more?

The Law Anthem

Design Trend: Black and White

Black and White images are often linked with these two words: 'Elegant' and 'Beautiful'. In the case of album artwork, that is quite often the case!

Bon Jovi

Calvin Harris

Cheryl Cole

This is a perfect example of how black and white images can improve album artwork. Ultimately, it's a very good piece of photography with a great composition, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't work no where near as well in full color. The magnificent highlights, midtones and shadows just wouldn't be noticed nearly as well in color!

The Dead Weather

JLS

Miike Snow

Design Trend: Minimalistic

Minimalistic covers, in most cases, are cheaper to produce. They sometimes work really well, and others not so well. This year we have seen quite a few minimal album covers, both good and bad.

Alexandra Burke

Madeleine Peyroux

Michael Jackson

Snow Patrol

Jay-Z

Jay-Z's latest album is both busy and minimalistic. Other than the red, it is all black and white. It's also clean, tidy, and has very simple typography. I love this cover, it's superb!

Design Trend: Digital

Digital artwork is a great way to aim artwork at a younger, more modern generation. It's a great way to increase sales if the album is aimed at a particular market.

The Black Eyed Peas

The Killers

Design Trend: Hand-Drawn

Hand-drawn is one of the biggest design trends of the year; not only in album artwork but in web design and other graphic design projects, too. We've seen it everywhere in the web especially, from complete hand-drawn designs, to hand-drawn rss and social media icons and even just the odd hand-drawn note.

Point Junction WA

Sea Wolf

Willie Nelson

Paolo Nutini

Silversun Pickups

Alice in Chains

Camera Obscura

I love the use of watercolor paint in this album artwork; it's elegant, smooth and beautiful.

Cass Mccombs

Dananananaykroyd

Iron & Wine

This is another one I struggled to categorize; it has superb typography but in the end the fact that it has a hand-drawn feel to it I had to categorize it here!

Nekocase

Norah Jones

Design Trend: Vector Art

We all love vector art; it's clean, elegant and the amount of effects are completely endless. No two things are ever the same!

Matt & Kim

Mika

This is an absolutely magnificent piece of art. The portrait is using the opposite technique to what us humans normally use; we tend to use color to make something stand out, but in this case black and white is used to stand out from the colorful background.

Ruminant Band

Sarah Jarosz

Them Crooked Vultures

Pink

Advertisement