Musicians use notes and melodies to create music, while designers sketch with colors and lines. As it represents both the intuitive vision and functional signpost for navigating a music collection, the importance of album design must not be overlooked. It’s fortunate then that not only has the design community’s obsession with album design never waned, but that we are arguably entering a new golden age.

In Behind the Album: Design for Popular Music, you will encounter 21 album designers and design studios who are passionate for music and dedicated to album design. Through interviews, readers will learn how these designers move through the process, from concept, to cover. The best examples extract the essence of the music and bring it back as the perfect aesthetic accompaniment. The stories and conversations within this book will help readers gain insight as to where the designers’ draw inspiration, how they collaborate with labels and artists and how they experience the music they’re designing for.