Streaming Era
2010-2024. The square thumbnail is the only canvas anyone sees. Frank Ocean's blond, yes, no e, and the post-record cover. Beyoncé, Kendrick, brat.
Part of Album Cover
37 moments in this segment.
- - Kanye West - My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. 2010 · Designer: George Condo · Kanye West Painted by George Condo specifically for the album, actually five separate Condo paintings, one for each of five regional releases. Banned by Walmart for the original "phoenix and Kanye" panel.
- - Dark Fantasy. 00:04:41
- - Kendrick Lamar - good kid, m.A.A.d city. 2012 · Designer: Vlad Sepetov · photo by Kendrick Lamar A Polaroid of baby Kendrick with his uncles, with the faces of two strikethrough-redacted. The cover that announced Lamar's biographical-album mode.
- - m.A.A.d city. 00:05:50
- - Daft Punk - Random Access Memories. 2013 · Designer: Cédric Hervet · Warren Fu The helmets, gilded, against a black square. Their last studio album cover; the duo would split in 2021.
- - Daft Punk (feat. Julian Casablancas) - Instant Crush [Random Access Memories]. 00:05:37
- - Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly. 2015 · Designer: Vlad Sepetov · Denis Rouvre Group portrait of Black men, women, children outside the White House, gold-toothed and unsmiling, holding a baby and a judge's gavel. Designed to be banned.
- - i. 00:05:36
- - Beyoncé - Lemonade. 2016 · Designer: Robert Schober · Awol Erizku Beyoncé in cornrows resting her head against a stadium-bleacher fence. The visual album's cover; Erizku's photograph became the touchstone for a new wave of Black portrait photography.
- - Hold Up. 00:03:41
- - Frank Ocean - Blonde. 2016 · Designer: Wolfgang Tillmans Tillmans' photograph of Ocean in green sweatshirt, hand over face, released as Blond (no E) on streaming, Blonde on the (hardcover-book + magazine + CD) physical. The misspelling is the cover.
- - Frank Ocean - Pink + White. 00:03:05
- - Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer. 2018 · Designer: Janelle Monáe · Carlota Guerrero Profile portrait of Monáe in red turtleneck and the album's rainbow circuit-board crown. The album-as-emotion-picture's defining still.
- - Janelle Monáe - Dirty Computer (feat. Brian Wilson). ) · 00:02:00
- - Billie Eilish - When We All Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go?. 2019 · Designer: Kenneth Cappello Eilish in white tank top sitting on a bed with all-white eyes, the cover that became the year's most-cosplayed image.
- - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO?. 00:00:31
- - Taylor Swift - folklore. 2020 · Designer: Beth Garrabrant Black-and-white photograph of Swift in a forest, taken in 35mm on her own with no production team during lockdown. The cover that announced Swift's indie-folk pivot.
- - Taylor Swift - the last great american dynasty (Official Lyric Video). ) · 00:03:52
- - Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR. 2021 · Designer: photo by Erica Hernandez Polaroid-style photograph of Rodrigo covered in stickers, half-Disney-Channel scrapbook, half-Y2K aesthetic. The cover for the album that defined post-2020 teenpop.
- - Sour by Olivia Rodrigo Full Album Playlist. 00:25:54
- - Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers. 2022 · Designer: Renell Medrano · Mike Carson Kendrick wearing a thorned crown holding a baby. Photograph by Renell Medrano; the crown was a Tiffany & Co. custom that took six weeks to make.
- - Kendrick Lamar - Mr. Morale ft. Tanna Leone (Official Audio). ) · 00:03:31
- - Beyoncé - Renaissance. 2022 · Designer: Carlijn Jacobs Beyoncé in chrome metal bikini on a crystal horse, Helmut Newton-coded high-glamour photography by Carlijn Jacobs. The cover that returned the album-cover-as-event format.
- - Beyoncé - SUMMER RENAISSANCE (Official Lyric Video). ) · 00:04:41
- - Beyoncé - Cowboy Carter. 2024 · Designer: Mason Poole Beyoncé on a white horse in a red-white-and-blue cowgirl costume, side-saddle, holding the American flag. The country-album rollout pivots to Mt. Rushmore-coded imagery.
- - Beyoncé - COWBOY CARTER | OFFICIAL VINYL. 00:00:23
- - Billie Eilish - Hit Me Hard and Soft. Billie Eilish describes spending hours in a tank of freezing water to produce the underwater image she had conceived for the cover of Hit Me Hard and Soft. A rare account of a cover shoot given by the performer in it.
- - Björk, cover by cover. A survey of Björk's album artwork from her debut through Fossora, tracing how each record's image was built. Her sleeves have been made with a rotating cast of photographers, fashion designers and digital artists.
- - Charli xcx - brat. 2024 · Designer: Imogene Strauss · Brent David Freaney Low-res Arial Bold "brat" in green-on-green, designed to be as deliberately ugly as possible. The image dominated 2024 cultural discourse for six months.
- - Charli xcx - Von dutch (official lyric video). ) · 00:02:55
- - Bad Bunny - Debí Tirar Más Fotos. A graphic-design breakdown of the sleeve for Bad Bunny's Debí Tirar Más Fotos, reading its visual references and small details. The cover leans on imagery of Puerto Rico's past rather than a portrait of the artist.
- - A Grammy for album covers. The Recording Academy reads out its 2026 nominations in the album cover category, alongside music video, music film and score. Sleeve design is one of the few craft categories the ceremony still names.
- - Covers without a name. A video essay on the recent turn toward album covers that carry no artist name and no title. The argument links the change to the streaming thumbnail, where the surrounding interface already supplies the credits.
- - Best Album Artwork, Aotearoa 2026. Ben Lawson wins Te Taumata o te Toi, Best Album Artwork, at the 2026 Aotearoa Music Awards for Beastwars' The Ship // The Sea. One of the few national music awards that judges sleeve design as its own category.
- - John Kosh on designing sleeves. An interview with John Kosh, who was art directing a London art magazine when John Lennon found his work in 1968 and pulled him into record design. He talks through a career spent making sleeves from the late 1960s onward.
- - The green behind brat. Brent David Freaney of Special Offer walks through his design practice at Figma's Config conference, including the single shade of green chosen for Charli xcx's brat. He describes work that runs across albums, magazines and live media.
- - Pen & Pixel's rap sleeves. Shawn Brauch, co-founder of Pen & Pixel, on the studio behind thousands of 1990s rap album covers and the practical effects that produced their jewelled, gold-plated look. An account of sleeve design from inside the studio that defined a regional style.
