The Shins "Wincing the Night Away"

I've always thought The Shins' Wincing the Night Away album art was really cool. The color scheme is simple and the designs on it are very abstract, yet eye catching. I've been trying for so long to figure out what exactly it is on the cover, but I've prett ymuch accepted it as just an interesting design piece with a series of shapes and lines. The bottom figure has some kind of plant radiating out, with a series of tube-shaped figures coming out of the one on top. Everything appears to have been drawn in with a pen, and overall the abstract album art is eye catching, despite it's neutral color scheme.

Cris Cab's "Red Road"

Cris Cab's new album Red Road just came out pretty recently and is definitely worth posting about. The album  design here is pretty different from anything else I've posted about. It's so simple, yet still looks really cool. The background is a black and white photo of a street view, but what grabs the attention is the way the album title is written. I love that only a red transparent shape is used in the middle of the cover, with simple fonts announcing the artist and album name. Just this one shape adds so much to the art, mostly because it is the only part of the design with color. Furthermore, Cris Cab's signature scribbled across the top adds something extra makes it feel more personalized.

Beach House's "Bloom"

Beach House's album Bloom utilizes various design elements in its album cover, the most prominent of which is movement. The way the circles are arranged and sized, they appear to be radiating out from the bottom of the album cover, creating the allusion of movement. The effect is overall pleasing to the eye, and all the more prominent with the contrasting color scheme of black and white. The element of space is present in the design as well, as the rows and rows of circles appear to be stretching out towards the top edge of the album cover from a long ways back. Overall the design here looks great and the way the different design elements interact make the album art all the more unusual and interesting to look at.

Sea Wolf's "Get to the River Before It Runs too Low"

Sea Wolf's Get to the River Before It Runs too Low has utilizes the element of symmetry in it's album cover to an extent. The first thing you notice is two chairs that appear to be a reflection of each other over some invisible horizontal line. Behind the chairs is an interesting shape that looks almost like a diamond because it consists of several shapes within it. At first glance it's easy to think this is also symmetrical, however, when you look closely you realize it isn't exactly the same on both sides. The combination of symmetrical and asymmetrical elements makes for an interesting album cover.

Death Cab for Cutie's "Codes and Keys"

Death Cab for Cutie's Codes and Keys has a really unusual design for the album art. The main focus is on what looks like a key from a keyboard of the pound (#) sign. Here, however, the "key" has some kind of texture and the # is carved through. Something about the contrast between the rough texture of the key and the lack of texture/ color where the # is really appeals to me. I think it's because the lines of the # are sharp and clean, with smooth edges, and the contrast between this  and the rough texture is really interesting.

The Shins' "Port of Morrow" continued

After writing about the back of the Port of Morrow album, I felt obligated to talk about the front cover as well. The design overall is interesting, but to be honest I have no idea what's going on in it. (I think that's the point, it's supposed to be fairly abstract.) At first glance, the dark mound in the center looked somewhat like a mountain, with the grey sky and stars, but now that I look up close I see that it could be anything really. There's some interesting lines going in different directions all over the dark mound that you don't notice until you look closely. Overall I think the design is interesting and I like that it's so open to interpretation.

The Shins "Port of Morrow"

The Shins have been one of my favorite bands for awhile now. When their latest album Port of Morrow came out last year, I listened to it repeatedly. Though the art on the album cover is interesting, the back is what really caught my attention. It consists of a series of warped ovals that seem to resemble pebbles, an idea further pushed by the distressed aspect and speckles throughout the back cover. The songs are all listed, one on each pebble, which I found really interesting because most albums list the songs in the same, ordinary way. I really love the arrangement of the back and the simple color scheme. 

Foster the People's "Torches"

After mentioning it in my previous post, I felt it was necessary to give Torches a post of its own. As you can see, its a simplified version of Maroon 5's Overexposed. The characters drawn in have a similar style, but Foster the Poeple sticks to just black white and a golden yellow instead of the many hues and shades utilized in Overexposed. My favorite thing though about this album cover is the font choice and style. I love how "Foster the People" is all one word, with 'the' less bold so as to separate each word without using spaces. Something about seeing the same font used throughout one design but in varying weights has always been eye catching for me. I also love that the album title is written in a narrow typeface with a lot of space between each letter, and that the only color on this album cover comes from the drawn-in torches and the word itself. It shows another way to connect the two, and just as the complicated design of Maroon 5's Overexposed worked for that album. The simplicity of Torches design works in this one.

Maroon 5's "Overexposed"

Maroon 5's Overexposed album art reminds me of a trippy and more colorful version of Foster the People's Torches. It's basically a collage of faces, shapes, mountains, and weird drippy substances coming out of a mouth that is attached to a nose and eyes, but no face. It's a little overwhelming to see so many brightly colored objects/ people all at once on a CD cover, but for some reason I'm really into it. Maybe its the color scheme I love, which consists of varying shades of pink, purple, orange, yellow, and turquoise, or maybe its the 3d aspect of the text that caught my eye. Either way, I think this design is really interesting.

Keane's "Spiralling"

Why are all Keane's album covers so perfect. Though Spiralling isn't technically an album (it's the one track promo CD that came out before Perfect Symmetry), I couldn't not share it. As I said before, I have a thing for geometric design. However, I also really have a thing for triangles. It's such an unusual shape, and when incorporated into design the end result is almost always visually stunning. The random positioning and angles of the triangles gives the impression that they are "spiralling" out, which I can't imagine is unintentional. I love that Keane's album cover designs all metaphorically reflect the album title in some way, but this one does it best. The transparency effect in the type and in some of the triangles is a nice extra touch, and overall I really love the design used here.