Cheap Thrills - Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin - Cheap Thrills (1968)

This is probably one of my favorite covers from my distant teenage years. R. Crumb created the cover illustration as a favor to his friend Joplin. The Rolling Stones asked him to do the same for them, but he refused because he hated their music.

Banned Album Covers

Was there ever really a time when you couldn't show a toilet on a product without it being banned from the public's eyes? Seems so quaint now in this day and age, sad to say. Gibson has an interesting list of banned album covers from over the years. Remember the Beatles' butcher cover? The Mamas and the Papas toilet fiasco? Be forewarned, some of these images are not safe for work.

Asia - Roger Dean

Roger Dean is an internationally recognized artist and designer, whose evocative and visionary images with associated graphics, logos, and lettering, created a new genre of work.

Made popular through the medium of album covers and posters his work, including posters, cards, books and album covers etc., has sold in excess of sixty million copies world-wide.

He has set up and successfully run his own publishing company which published his books Views and Magnetic Storm. Views went straight to number one in the best seller lists going on to sell over a million copies.

The “Asia” album cover above that Dean did for the band, “Yes” was later voted the second most successful album cover design of all time, (after "Sergeant Pepper" ) by readers of "Rolling Stone" magazine.

You can discover more about Roger Dean on his website.

John Van Hamersveld

John Van Hamersveld was born in 1941 in Baltimore, MD. He both attended and taught at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and California Institute of the Arts. From earliest positions of art director of Surfer Magazine and Capitol Records. John's experience has spanned album cover, poster, packaging, industrial, magazine and book design.

John has designed over 300 album covers for groups like the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Blondie, Kiss, Public Image and many others, including… Exile on Main Street and Magical Mystery Tour.

His 360° mural at the Los Angeles Coliseum, executed for the 1984 Olympic Games won him national recognition by the American Institute of Architects. He is also well known for his poster design for the movie, The Endless Summer, which is one of the most popular and recognizable poster images of all time. His work as part of the concert promotion company Pinnacle resulted in one of John’s most enduring body of posters, including what is widely considered one of the greatest rock posters ever made, for Jimi Hendrix at LA’s Shrine Auditorium.

More recently, John designed the posters for the Cream 2005 Reunion Concerts at London’s Royal Albert Hall and Madison Square Gardens and the packaging for the Warner Brothers CD and DVD releases.