The Best of: Hand-Drawn Album Art

I can appreciate a good photograph or a digital art piece on a record cover as much as the next audiophile, but there’s something extra special about album artwork that’s illustrated by hand. Here are five brilliantly sketched album covers that always catch my eye over the other records in the record store.

Hand-Drawn Album Art

The Beatles – Revolver (1966)

The black and white cover of The Beatles’ Revolver is as memorable as the hook in “Eleanor Rigby.” German-born artist Klaus Voormann hand-sketched each of the four members in ink, and then combined them into a collage featuring various photographs of the band. Voormann even managed to sneak himself into the cluster of images. A photograph of the artist can be found hidden in George Harrison’s hair on the far right side of the cover.

Joni Mitchell – Song to a Seagull (1968)

Singing and songwriting aren’t the only talents of Joni Mitchell; she’s also an esteemed visual artist.  Mitchell beautifully illustrated the covers for several of her albums, but it’s the piece she used for the cover of her debut album Song to a Seagull that really stands out.  There’s a psychedelic peacock with colorful flowers billowing from its back, layered over a line-sketched backdrop of a beaming sun and a drifting sail boat. It was this mind-bending imagery coupled with her stellar song-crafting skills that provided Mitchell with a perfect introduction to the music scene in the late 1960’s.

Dinosaur Jr. – Dinosaur (1985)

Maura Jasper did the artwork for the first several records released by noise-pop trio Dinosaur Jr. Most of the work she did with Dino Jr. is grimy and almost unsettling, but the pen and ink sketch she created for the band’s debut release Dinosaur is actually quite pleasant. Maybe it’s just that ear-to-ear grin on the sun’s face.

Menomena – Friend and Foe (2007)

Menomena’s Friend and Foe has arguably the most creative album art design of the past decade. Craig Thompson, creator of the award-winning graphic novel Blankets, illustrated the front and back of the album cover, as well as the art on the CD itself. What makes the design of this album so unique is that the artwork actually changes depending on how the CD is placed in its jewel casing.  The cover has cut-out sections that reveal portions of the artwork printed on the disc. The disc can be rotated while inside the case, altering the appearance of the illustration on the outside.

Fever Ray – Fever Ray (2009)

Fever Ray is the solo project of Karin Dreijer Andersson from The Knife. She’s only released one album so far under that moniker, and it’s a doozy. It’s some of the most eerie, otherworldly electro-pop in recent memory, and its artwork is as equally eerie and otherworldly as the music sounds. The cover was illustrated by Martin Anders using only pen and paper and it depicts what looks like a young sorceress in sunglasses brewing  up a potential spell of sorts. It’s a little bit unsettling but it’s undeniably cool.

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What are some your favorite album covers done by hand? Let us know in the comments.