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Music is probably the number one inspirational source for a lot of artists and designers. Music can express great emotions that will often move its creative listeners to try and capture and convey and those feelings in their own art. Regardless of your favorite genre, music is sometimes key to the creative process.
The second greatest part of music for most designers is the album cover and/or packaging. This is the bit that essentially tries to sum up the feel and the message behind all the music on an album; and it also becomes the iconic look for a classic album (think Pink Floyd and Aerosmith, just to name a few). These types of artistically and creatively fueled album covers provide lots of inspiration for various artists.
A genre that many people pass over for album cover inspiration is urban music (hip hop, r&b, pop). In those genres, most of the album covers are quick and easy and use some sort of glamour shot of the artist on the cover. Very rarely do you find something that really captures the soul of a project or is artistically charged–there isn’t a ton of creativity. Fortunately, we did some digging and have come up with some great looking, artistically inspired urban album covers from famous rap, r&b and pop artists.
The Album Cover Inspiration
9th Wonder – The Wonder Years
Cover Artist – Princess Spencer (see how this cover came about).
The Airplane Boys – Where’ve You Been
Cover Artist -Â Â Justin ‘Create’ Toledo of LiveBeauMonde
Erykah Badu – New Amerykah Part Two: Return of the Ankh
Cover Artist – EMEK
The Notorious B.I.G. – Duets: The Final Chapter
Cover Artist – Elizabeth Rosen
Blake Carrington – Dare to Dream
Cover Artist – Deadly Del Mundo
Bruno Mars – Doo-Wops & Hooligans
Cover Artist – Nick Bilardello
Common – Finding Forever
Cover Artist – Electric HeatÂ
Flight Distance – Bad Information
Cover Artist – Jesse Winchester
Fortunate Ones – Sleepless Nights and Numb Hearts
Cover Artist – Lou Ros
Gnarls Barkley – St. Elsewhere
Cover Artist – Kam Tang
Headnodic – Red Line Radio
Cover Artist – Matt Linares
Jacob Fred Jazz Odyssey – Race Riot Suite
Cover Artist – Peregrine Honig
Jay-Z & Linkin Park – Collision Course
Cover Artist – The FLEM
Kanye West – Graduation
Cover Artist – Â Takashi Murakami
Kosha Dillz – Gina & The Garage Sale EP
Cover Artist – Chuck U
Mac Miller – Blue Slide Park
Cover Artist – Redtape Design
Mac Miller – On and On and Beyond
Cover Artist – Unknown
Michael Jackson – Michael
Cover Artist -Â Kadir Nelson
Musiq Soulchild – MusiqInTheMagiq
Cover Artist – Nick Bilardello
N.E.R.D. – Â Seeing Sounds
Cover Artist – Jun Hirota
Outkast – Stankonia (Limited Edition Cover)
Cover Artist – Unknown
A Tribe Called Quest – The Low End Theory
Cover Artist – Zombart JK
Sims – Â Bad Time Zoo
Cover Artist – The Pressure
CunninLynguists – Strange Journey: Volume One
Cover Artist – Unknown
T.I. – Paper Trail
Cover Artist – Ian Wright
Travis Barker – Â Give the Drummer Some
Cover Artist – Pushead
Wiz Khalifa – Rolling Papers
Cover Artist -Â Greg Gigendad Burke
Jay-Z & Kanye West – Watch The Throne
Cover Artist -Â Ricardo Tisci
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