Once upon a time, I could locate albums in my music collection by the color of the spine. The cover art provided a kind of stylistic fingerprint as unique as the music itself; it was tangible. The process of hearing something new involved the consumption of the cover, jacket, and any enclosed materials in concert with the audio. The music and art were closely associated.
As my music collection has transformed from physical to digital, the album artwork has gradually become disentangled from the audio. Looking at the spines now seems more like gazing at a strangers collection. Sometimes looking at the collection produces moments of pleasant surprise at finding some long forgotten album or artist. The recognized album artwork producing a sudden remembrance of a favorite song, a concert attended, or some more loosely associated memory.
When adding new music to the digital collection, I always attempt to associate an image of the album cover art with the MP3 tracks. It’s not the same as handling a record jacket or reading the lyrics from a CD insert, but it allows some of the visual association with the audio as in the past. It enhances the experience.
Here is an excerpt of a Design Observer article by Adrian Shaughnessy titled “Are JPEGs the New Album Covers?” which looks into the future of album cover art. Check it out.
Over the past few months I’ve been researching a book about current record cover art. Besides hunting down examples of stimulating music graphics, I’ve also been looking for digital alternatives to the traditional album cover. As downloading threatens to become the main distribution method for recorded music, it is widely believed that the album cover will be replaced by some new online format — perhaps animated — that will make CD packaging redundant.
Tags: Album Cover, Art, Design, MP3
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