2009 Album Cover Trends

2009 Album Cover Trends

Design Trend: Portraits

Portrait photography is great direction to head in for solo artists; however it has never been a big thing for bands and groups. The portrait helps customers put a face to the name, making them more aware of the artists, their songs, and their latest album (probably the one they're looking at!). Portraits in album artwork always tend to be close-up macro shots, usually of the artists face; this completely fills the area, meaning the customer/viewer is focusing their full attention on the artist.

Design Trend: Photo Manipulations

Photo Manipulations are a great way to make an album pop out - it suggests the type of music the artist or band produce, and if done well can generally increase sales.

Design Trend: Grunge

Just like other graphic design projects and web design, grunge is a great way to add depth and interest to album artworks. Although it is more commonly used by bands, it works just as well for solo artists; however it does, in the end, all come down to the genre of music the band or artist produces.

Design Trend: Image-Based

A powerful photograph could be all it takes to increase an albums amount of sales. Scroll down and you'll find a couple that are strong enough to cope as a cover without any use of typography whatsoever!

Design Trend: Type-Based

Just like the image-based album trend, powerful typography can sometimes be enough all by itself. It works in the exact same way a typography based web design or poster works!

Design Trend: Black and White

Black and White images are often linked with these two words: 'Elegant' and 'Beautiful'. In the case of album artwork, that is quite often the case!

Design Trend: Minimalistic

Minimalistic covers, in most cases, are cheaper to produce. They sometimes work really well, and others not so well. This year we have seen quite a few minimal album covers, both good and bad.

Design Trend: Digital

Digital artwork is a great way to aim artwork at a younger, more modern generation. It's a great way to increase sales if the album is aimed at a particular market.

Design Trend: Hand-Drawn

Hand-drawn is one of the biggest design trends of the year; not only in album artwork but in web design and other graphic design projects, too. We've seen it everywhere in the web especially, from complete hand-drawn designs, to hand-drawn rss and social media icons and even just the odd hand-drawn note.

Design Trend: Vector Art

We all love vector art; it's clean, elegant and the amount of effects are completely endless. No two things are ever the same!