A list of graphic artists, comic strip artists, painters, and photographers (among others) who have designed covers of music albums.
Creators:
- Peter Blake - Designed the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles and Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones.
- Charles Burns - Created the album cover of Iggy Pop's Brick by Brick.
- Captain Beefheart - Designed the cover art for his own albums Shiny Beast, Doc at the Radar Station and the painting on Ice Cream for Crow.
- Kurt Cobain - Designed the artwork for Incesticide and the back cover of In Utero.
- Michael Cooper - Photographed the cover for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band by The Beatles and Their Satanic Majesties Request by The Rolling Stones''.
- Richard Corben - Designed the album cover for Meat Loaf's Bat Out of Hell.
- Anton Corbijn - Before he became a film director, he photographed the covers of Captain Beefheart's Ice Cream for Crow, U2's The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby, and R.E.M.'s Automatic for the People (later providing photographs for Collapse into Now 19 years later). Also shot album covers for Bruce Springsteen, Nick Cave, Metallica, Depeche Mode, Therapy?, The Rolling Stones (their live album Stripped), Bon Jovi, Simple Minds, and The Cramps, among others.
- Robert Crumb - Designed the cover of Janis Joplin 's Cheap Thrills and many compilation albums of 1920s and 1930s jazz, country and blues artists.
- Roger Dean - Designed album covers for Yes (he designed their logo, too), Uriah Heep, Gentle Giant and Asia, among other bands.
- Bob Dylan - Designed the album covers of his own records Self Portrait and Planet Waves.
- Shepard Fairey - Created covers for The Smashing Pumpkins (Zeitgeist), Anthrax (The Greater Of Two Evils) and Johnny Cash.
- Howard Finster - Outsider artist who painted covers for Talking Heads (Little Creatures), R.E.M. (Reckoning), and Adam Again (In a New World of Time).
- Frank Frazetta - Designed album covers for Herman's Hermits, Nazareth, Molly Hatchet.
- Robert Freeman - Provided the album covers of With the Beatles, Beatles for Sale, Help!, Rubber Soul by The Beatles.
- H. R. Giger - Designed covers for Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Brain Salad Surgery), Debbie Harry, Magma (Attahk), Dead Kennedys (Frankenchrist).
- Terry Gilliam - Designed the covers of most of the Monty Python albums, including Another Monty Python Record, The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief and Monty Python Live at Drury Lane.
- Barry Godber - Painted the album cover of In the Court of the Crimson King by King Crimson and died shortly afterwards.
- Jean-Paul Goude - Designed Grace Jones' album covers for Warm Leatherette, Nightclubbing, Living My Life, Slave to the Rhythm, Island Life, and Hurricane - Dub.
- Melvyn Grant - Did six covers for Iron Maiden (three studio albums, a live album, a compilation and a single).
- Alex Grey - Designed the artwork used in all of tool's discography from Lateralus onwards.
- Richard Alden 'Rick' Griffin - Created the album cover of Aoxomoxoa by The Grateful Dead.
- Richard Hamilton - Designed the The White Album by The Beatles.
- Phil Hartman - In his years before becoming an actor he designed album covers for bands like America and Poco.
- Gottfried Helnwein - Created album covers for Scorpions (Blackout), Marilyn Manson, and Rammstein (Sehnsucht).
- Hipgnosis - Art design group best known for creating album covers for Pink Floyd (A Saucerful of Secrets, More, Ummagumma, Atom Heart Mother, Meddle, Obscured by Clouds, The Dark Side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here (1975), Animals,...) , T. Rex (Electric Warrior), Bad Company, Led Zeppelin (Houses of the Holy, The Song Remains the Same), Paul McCartney and Wings, The Alan Parsons Project (I, Robot), Wishbone Ash, Genesis (The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway), The Pretty Things, XTC, Peter Gabriel (Car, Scratch, Melt), Yes (Going for the One, Tormato), AC/DC (international release of Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap), Styx and many others.
- Al Hirschfeld - A well-known caricaturist who drew covers for several albums, including Aerosmith's Draw The Line and the original cast recording of Merrily We Roll Along.
- Daniel Johnston - Designed the covers of all his albums, including Hi, How Are You and Yip/Jump Music.
- Ken Kelly - Designed the covers of KISS' Destroyer and Rainbow's Rising.
- Trevor Key - Designed the album cover of Mike Oldfield's Tubular Bells and albums covers for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, Phil Collins, Midge Ure, Roxy Music, Ultravox and New Order.
- Mati Klarwein - Created album covers for Miles Davis (Bitches Brew, Life-Evil), Santana (Abraxas), The Last Poets (This Is Madness)
- Tendon Levey - Designed the covers for all of his own albums.
- Listie - Designs all of the covers for their own mashups.
- Vincent Locke - Designed the artworks used in all of Cannibal Corpse's discography, including some works that were left unused.
- David Montgomery - Photographed the nude women album cover for Electric Ladyland by Jimi Hendrix.
- Robert Mapplethorpe - Photographed Patti Smith's Horses and Easter, Marquee Moon by Television, and Peter Gabriel's first Greatest Hits Album Shaking the Tree: Sixteen Golden Greats (released a year after Mapplethorpe's death). One of his photographs was used for Swans' The Burning World posthumously.
- Gary Panter: Designed the album covers for Frank Zappa's Orchestral Favorites, Studio Tan and Sleep Dirt.
- Neon Park - Created the album cover of Frank Zappa's Weasels Ripped My Flesh.
- Guy Peellaert - Designed the album cover of Diamond Dogs by David Bowie and It's Only Rock 'n Roll by The Rolling Stones.
- Pen & Pixel - Responsible for numerous Southern Rap album covers in the 90s.
- Raymond Pettibon - Responsible for most of Black Flag's iconography, from his classic hand-drawn covers to the four-bar logo. Also worked with Sonic Youth, Minutemen and many other punk bands.
- Jamie Reid - Created the album cover for The Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols.
- Ed Repka - Album designer for Megadeth
- Derek Riggs - Creator of Iron Maiden's Metal Band Mascot Eddie, did many singles and albums for the band, along with some for other artists (including Bruce Dickinson solo).
- Herb Ritts - Shot the album cover of True Blue by Madonna.
- Mick Rock - Designed album covers for Queen (Queen II, Sheer Heart Attack), David Bowie, Lou Reed (Transformer, Coney Island Baby) , The Stooges (Raw Power), The Sex Pistols, Ramones (End of the Century), Talking Heads (back cover of Talking Heads: 77), Blondie, Syd Barrett (The Madcap Laughs, in collaboration with Hipgnosis).
- Alex Ross has illustrated three covers for Anthrax: We've Come for You All, Music of Mass Destruction and Worship Music.
- Ethan Russell - Took the photographs of Let It Be by The Beatles, Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! The Rolling Stones in Concert by The Rolling Stones and Quadrophenia and Who's Next by The Who.
- Mark Ryden - Created album covers for Michael Jackson's Dangerous, Red Hot Chili Peppers' One Hot Minute and Aerosmith's Love In An Elevator.
- Stefan Sagmeister - Designed album covers for Yellow Magic Orchestra, Talking Heads, David Byrne, Lou Reed, The Rolling Stones, Aerosmith, OK Go, Live, and Pat Metheny Group, among others.
- Peter Saville - Frequent collaborator with Joy Division and New Order, designing album and single covers for both (e.g. Unknown Pleasures, Closer, Power, Corruption & Lies, Technique, etc.). Also designed covers for Peter Gabriel (So), King Crimson (Discipline), Ultravox (Vienna, Rage in Eden), Johnny Cash, Suede, and Pulp, among others.
- Cal Schenkel - Best known for designing the covers of most of Frank Zappa's albums, including We're Only in It for the Money, Uncle Meat, Burnt Weeny Sandwich, Fillmore East, June 1971, Just Another Band from L.A., The Grand Wazoo, Apostrophe ('), Tinseltown Rebellion, Does Humor Belong in Music?, The Best Band You Never Heard in Your Life, etc. Also designed the cover of Captain Beefheart's Trout Mask Replica.
- Norman Seeff - One of the most prominent celebrity portrait photographers of the 70s and 80s. His work appears on album covers for Aerosmith, Alabama, Herb Alpert, Bananarama, The Band, Shirley Bassey, Blondie, Eric Carmen, Carpenters, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Cheap Trick, Cher, Chicago, Neil Diamond, Eagles, Electric Light Orchestra, The Everly Brothers, Fleetwood Mac, Foreigner, Grand Funk Railroad, Merle Haggard, Isaac Hayes, Whitney Houston, KISS, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Steve Martin, Curtis Mayfield, John Mellencamp, Joni Mitchell, Mott the Hoople, Willie Nelson, Michael Nesmith, The Police, Public Image Ltd., Suzi Quatro, Ramones, Carly Simon, Sly and the Family Stone, Rod Stewart, James Taylor, John Travolta, Barry White, Andy Williams and Frank Zappa, among others.
- Storm Thorgerson - One of the principal members of Hipgnosis. After that company split up, his StormStudios company continued his relationships with Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin and Styx, while gaining new clients such as The Cranberries, Catherine Wheel, Biffy Clyro, Kansas, Steve Miller Band, etc.
- George Underwood - A lifelong friend of David Bowie, Underwood did artwork for Bowie's albums Space Oddity, Hunky Dory and The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. He also designed or contributed to Gentle Giant's self-titled debut album and Octopus, the British cover of Procol Harum's Shine On Brightly, several T. Rex albums, and Mott the Hoople's All the Young Dudes.
- John Van Hamersveld - Designed album covers for The Beatles (Magical Mystery Tour, KISS (Hotter Than Hell), and The Rolling Stones (Exile on Main St.), among many others.
- Klaus Voormann - An artist and musician who was a pal of The Beatles since their days playing in Hamburg clubs, he designed the album covers for Revolver and The Beatles Anthology by The Beatles, All Things Must Pass by George Harrison, Imagine by John Lennon, Transformer by Lou Reed, and Idea by The Bee Gees.
- Andy Warhol - Before he became famous, he drew several covers for obscure jazz albums. Later, he designed the album covers of The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground and Sticky Fingers by The Rolling Stones.
