In 1938 Alex Stienweiss created the idea of custom artwork on record album covers and designed the first covers with original design, replacing the existing cardboard inslip which simply said the name of the album plus a stamp on the front of the record with the artist name.

His covers all seem to be very abstract pieces of work with much colour used to make it as eye catching as possible. The font and size of the font varies in each of the covers giving all of them there own uniqueness.

1940’s

By the late 1940s, record albums for all the major companies featured their own colourful paper covers. Some featured the use of classic art while others created more original designs.

Once the work of Alex Steinweiss was produced many more music producing companies followed in the same, with all the albums containing art on the cover. These included the works or artists and designers such as: Jim Flora, Jim Amos, Rudolph de Harek as well as more of Alex Steinweiss’s works.

Since the 1920’s the camera has been known to be more complete although colour photography was only just released. Once the first of the album covers were produced from art, photography was quickly involved with some covers having plain pictures and others having art with the use of photography, which have both carried on though the 21st century.

There was no real noticeable impact on album covers through the World War II as they were only in early development and usually just featured the artist. Though there was an effect on the music and how it was portrayed through that time.There was a lot of music

produced through the war to express peoples feelings, such as "Keep 'em Flying" and "Any Bonds Today?" (urging people to enter the War). But as the war dragged on and more and more people entered the service, songs became more reflective, even sad. There were songs such as "I'll Walk Alone" (about a woman whose boyfriend was sent overseas), "I'll Be Home for Christmas (But Only in My Dreams)".

1950’s

Through the 1950’s ablum covers stayed much the same with mainly the artist and a collection of bold bright colours being shown. It is clear that there is an improvement between the works of 1940 and 1950 in that there is a lot more thought to composition and style this majorly being shown through the legendary artist Elvis Presley and the creation of Rock and Roll.

1960’s

Through mainly the late 1960’s album covers started to become more creative with the uses of cartoon drawings, higher quality photography giving the albums a more modern look.

The Beetles were the main artist making the most unique designs for their albums with all of them being very eye catching and abstract showing that there are no boundaries with the album art and that anything could be done.

A big influence on album cover art and general art in society today was the introduction of computer imaging. Known to be first made in 1973 computer imaging is basically computer developed art.

Computer imaging is used in Film, Gaming, Television and much more. The use of computer imaging gives the artist a huge range of effects and styles to use on pieces of art in which some are near impossible to create without a computer.

Computer art has only been used in album covers from the late 20th century onwards.

1970’s-1980’s

Through the 1970’s to the 1980’s punk was the biggest crave in music. Though being very controversial punk was undoubtedly a revolution in music. The era also effected the album art with black usually being the main colour instead of the usual bright and colourful theme.

Like the music the album artwork seemed to turn a lot more controversial with artists pushing the boundaries of what they can publish.

Jamie Reid is an artist in which his works of cut out pieces of paper seem to reflect all of what punk rock is about. His works are very abstract but all seem to be very interesting and thus appealing.

He is best known for the work he produced for the punk rock band the Sex Pistols. A lot of his covers attracted much public attention and with the success of the popularity of Ried was increased massively.

In 2001 the album cover ‘God Saved The Queen’ was voted number 1 for the greatest album cover ever made.

1990’s And The 21st Century

Through the late 1990’s and the 21st century album covers have been developed even more with computer graphics and more detailed covers being shown. The works of art are very high quality and interesting to look at.

Artists of recent have found the effects album art has on the sale of there album and have thrived on making them as appealing as possible. Artist have also tried to pass messages through there art though some works are found to be offensive to some viewers.