Album Design Quotes

In the Seventies, album artwork became really beautiful items. The whole process of doing an album sleeve, it became a very artistic thing.

Normally when I do an album, I have a concept behind it.

I realized at a young age that sequence in an album is almost as important as the songs that are on the album.

When you are making an album, it is about the purpose - you are creating both a concept and vibe, then you follow through with that.

I've been asking myself: 'Why put together these things - CDs, albums?' The answer I came up with is, well, sometimes it's artistically viable. It's not just a random collection of songs. Sometimes the songs have a common thread, even if it's not obvious or even conscious on the artists' part.

I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

One of those things that I find hard to dispose of is my attitude to album sequencing, the layout of the pieces.

All my album artwork is body painting.

I wanted to do the whole album in black and white, and it really killed me that when you see it in the light it's got green in it. I don't know what the hell that was about.

I think there's only eight songs on 'Born to Run' - I don't think it's much more than 35 minutes long. But as you move into it, where every song comes up in the sequence makes a lot of sense - though we weren't thinking about it; we were going on instinct at the time.

I wanted the album to be aerodynamic, like an airplane taking off from a runway - all of a sudden you're in the air.

Whenever I work on an album and the time comes to do all the artwork, the only thing I think of is the LP artwork. When we worked on the 'Electric Trim' artwork, we spent weeks and weeks making the LP artwork great, and then the CD artwork came together in a day or two. The LP is what's important to me.

When you'd buy vinyl, you'd have this lovely-sized object with a lovely picture, and you'd read the lyrics and usually there was something artistic that went with it.

Universal was absolutely marvelous about sitting down with me and listening to my input. It wasn't something where they chose a bunch of songs that were best sellers. They did a marvelous job on the packaging. It's a beautiful tribute.

You can't underestimate the importance of cover art.

I've waited for the day my debut album is released my entire life, so naturally I've designed it to be listened to from start to finish - so every song flows into each other in a way that tells a sonic story.

The collectability of music is something lost in the age of MP3s and album downloads. Holding an album in your hands and having the full-sized artwork reconnects the artist and the listener.

I enjoy singing my songs in front of people. I enjoy being involved in making the artwork for albums and stupid stuff like that.

I think that, in a digital age, album covers are becoming a lost art.

It would be cool for someone to ask me about some of the structural choices I make with my albums.

If I had a label, everything would have been easier. But it wouldn't have been the same album, from the cover art to the songs on it.