You probably know the phrase “Don’t judge a book by its cover.” This is basically telling you to read the book or watch a movie without having the picture in mind. Unfortunately, people will do this anyways. Looks are everything to people and if something throws them off, they will probably not think of it any further.
Considering how many options you get in the library, you probably don’t have a lot of time to go through a book before having to check out something. The method that I used while checking out a book is the summary on the back and the cover. Using the cover is a huge mistake because while it may look cool, the book might actually be the worst thing you’ve ever read. We once had to pick between four books for a literature section in my high school English class. The book cover looked better than everything else so I went with it. However, a few chapters in I realized I made a mistake. The book was pretty terrible and I can’t remember a single plot point. Even the other people that picked the book also agreed that it was one of the worst things they’d ever read.
(Malcolm Tredinnick / Flickr)
Books that get movies based on them are the worst contenders when it comes to changing the artwork. One of my favourite examples of this is The Great Gatsby. There are a few editions of The Great Gatsby out there that are just the movie cover. This looked incredibly lame compared to the artwork that was on the original editions. It helped people differentiate the books and movies and gave them separate identities. This kind of change is pretty disgusting and should be avoided in the future. We really didn’t need Leonardo DiCaprio on the book cover.
A good version of the book
(Alan Trotter / Flickr)
Having terrible cover art can sometimes make it the only thing they will talk about. Iron Maiden’s Dance of Death album cover is notorious for having CGI characters on screen. CGI technology in 2003 was not the best so having that style on the album cover will clearly show its age. You also have the original cover for Megadeth’s Killing is My Business..and Business is Good! That cover was originally supposed to be an illustration of Vic Rattlehead but instead, they used a plastic skull. Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine was also pretty unhappy with the cover. Rereleases would eventually have a proper illustration along with the new logo.
Some of the best album art are the ones that are hand drawn. The album art during the late 80s thrash era is some of the best out there. Edward Repka’s work on Megadeth and Death’s albums is the most notable out there. The art style just works well for those albums and defined that era.
Album art that features the artist is a nice treat. However, featuring a full band can be risky. If someone leaves the band, it can easily show how much the cover has aged. Paramore’s self-titled album originally featured the full band but was recently changed to a shot of frontwoman Hayley Williams from behind. There wasn’t an official explanation however most people speculate they just don’t want former bassist Jeremy Davis on their album cover anymore, especially after going through a legal battle with him.
Video game cover art is a different story because it can show a visual representation of what to expect. Back in the 80s, games for the Nintendo Entertainment System would actually have pixel art that looked like the game. They mostly did this because the generation of games before that had pretty misleading covers, which made sense since ancient games aren’t exactly the prettiest thing to look at. After those first few years, they went back to more illustrative art covers after video games started to make a comeback in the market.
Phalanx is a spaceship shooter game for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System. Most spaceship shooter games usually show a picture of a fighter jet that was in the game. When it comes to Phalanx, they went a different route. They showed a picture of a bearded man playing the banjo while the spaceship flies in the background. This helped it stand out from the rest of the spaceship shooter games that were out at the time.
These days, video game cover art can be pretty boring. You’re probably familiar with what it looks like these days. It’s just a character front and centre in the environment the game takes place. While it does give a good idea of what the game is, the fact that most games went this route can be tiresome. The lack of art to attract me is one of the few reasons why I don’t play as many games as I used to. Every game just looks the same to me which doesn’t make them exciting as they used to.
With AI art taking over things these days, people will sometimes use it to make cover art. They can just tell the generator what the thing is about and will make something off that. August Burns Red’s upcoming album, Death Below, is a recent example of this. The artwork was most likely made with Midjourney just like most AI art made in 2022. People are quick to see how lame it is for them to not get a real artist to make the album cover. The album art doesn’t even tell you what the album holds. From what I asked my friends, they assume that the prompt the AI was given is “post-apocalyptic Disneyland.” I can no longer unsee that monstrosity. If you’re someone who needs album art, please get someone to design something instead of an AI. If money is tight, just put text on a plain background or take a photo of something. It has a lot more integrity than AI and will probably look better.
maybe they’ll let AI write the songs, too https://t.co/GowmxbUhYg
— dev (@foot_rubba) November 2, 2022
Cover art is something that can make or break a piece of media. It’s people’s first impression so make it count.