Five Iconic Album Covers Created by Artists We Love

With the release of the new David Shrigley album cover for Who Let The Dogs Out by Lambrini Girls it got us thinking about other times contemporary artists have lent their distinct visual voice to the world of music. From Shrigley’s dry wit to Frank Kozik’s anarchic edge, here are five of our favourite collaborations between art and sound.

1. Lambrini Girls - Who Let The Dogs Out (David Shrigley)

There’s no mistaking a David Shrigley piece. His absurdist humour and hand-scrawled honesty are instantly recognisable. For Lambrini Girls’ debut, Who Let The Dogs Out, Shrigley captures the band’s chaotic feminist punk energy with a touch of deadpan wit. It’s irreverent, funny, and perfectly imperfect.

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2. The Offspring - Americana (Frank Kozik)

Frank Kozik defined the counterculture aesthetic of the ’90s. His work for Americana by The Offspring, a disturbingly cheerful suburban boy swinging with a mechanical fish, is pure subversion. It’s bright, brash, and unsettling beneath the surface, echoing the album’s critique of modern American life. Kozik’s fusion of cartoonish style and political commentary cemented his place as one of punk’s visual pioneers.

3. Blur - Think Tank (Banksy)

Before Banksy became a household name, he designed Blur’s Think Tank album cover. Two divers kissing beneath the surface. It’s stark, romantic, and quietly political, reflecting the post-9/11 tension and introspection that shaped the record. The cover’s anonymity and emotional distance make it quintessential Banksy: intimate, global, and untraceable.

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4. Kanye West - 808s & Heartbreak (KAWS)

KAWS brought his melancholic cartoon world to Kanye West’s emotionally raw 808s & Heartbreak. The deflated balloon heart, marked by KAWS’ signature X-eyes, became an instant icon, a perfect visual metaphor for heartbreak and detachment in the digital age. It bridged pop, street art, and design, proving that an album cover could be both mass-produced and deeply personal.

5. The Hours - Narcissus Road (Damien Hirst)

Damien Hirst’s collaboration with The Hours turned the album sleeve into a meditation on time and mortality. The cover features a hyper-realistic skull with clock dials in its eyes, set against one of Hirst’s signature spin-paint backdrops. Bold, chaotic, and unmistakably Hirst. It’s a perfect fusion of music and conceptual art: the ticking eyes reminding us that time, like fame, is fleeting.

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Art Meets Sound: Where Two Worlds Collide

From Shrigley’s sardonic sketches to Hirst’s conceptual cool, these collaborations prove that when artists cross into music, the results are rarely superficial. Each cover captures more than a band’s identity, it becomes part of the cultural landscape, a lasting visual echo of the sound it represents.

In an age of streaming and pixels, the album sleeve remains one of the few places where art and music can truly merge - tactile, memorable, and instantly iconic. Proof that sometimes, the most powerful visual stories don’t come from a stage or a screen, but from the artist’s studio.