Shrinking Album Art

The inimitable Janis Joplin and her band Big Brother and the Holding Company first made a splash with Cheap Thrills – an album as famous for its cover art as it is for its music. Then-underground cartoonist Robert Crumb produced the tiny, detailed, comic-strip-like album cover - even on a 12-inch vinyl sleeve you have to squint to read it.

Now that so many of us look at album covers on tiny iPod screens, classic cover art would not make the cut today. Artists went from the vinyl, to the CD cover and are now adapting to a rapidly shrinking canvas, which hasn’t escaped the notice of Steven Heller. He’s former art director for the New York Times, and he’s written an entire library of books about design history. He joins us to talk about the future of album art. We'll also hear from Ryan Clark, art director for Tooth and Nail Records and co-founder of Invisible Creature.

Steven Heller in Wired: "Design Artwork for a Shrinking Album Cover"

Below: artist Robert Crumb talks about the making of the Cheap Thrills cover:

(Photo courtesy ShellyS via Flickr/Creative Commons)