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| The art of the album cover: a history and a how to, by Richard Evans |
The book itself is simply amazing, ranging telling a story of over 70 years of album covers, from the earliest actual album covers in 1940 by Alex Steinweiss, to 2009's album Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster. It describes in detail how the period in time and bands/genres influenced the album covers of that era and often even why so. He describes the album covers as, and I quote, "the timelines of our lives".
I will definitely be using this book a lot for further posts - but might even edit older posts to include more insights/information. I am planning on reading this from the start and get a better understanding of the history and evolution of the artwork, probably also posting some posts purely on this.
People who are interested in album covers, this book is definitely something I would recommend. I am still trying to get more books by different authors, but they are hard to buy physically and I will have to start ordering them. Don't get me wrong, there is plenty. As Evans puts it, it just shows how album covers "[have] become an established form in its own right", and that no other wrapping of commercial products has such status. It seems like it is just underappreciated by the general public (some books on album covers are literally coffee table books with merely pictures and the occasional annotation), though both fans and designers are passionate about it.
References (literature):
1. The art of album covers, a history and a how to, by Richard Evans ISBN 13: 978-0-7858-2677-4 (ISBN 10: 0-7858-2677-7)
~ jar
