The art of album covers

Designing album covers used to be straight forward. After all, the size of vinyl albums was pretty standard back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days album cover designs have to work in a far smaller scale - when you're playing tracks on your smart phone, for example. The three finalists in this year's annual Artisan Awards for Best Album Cover include painter Dick Frizzell who's collaborated with Tim Harper on the cover of the Salvation Army's Offering album, a selection of gospel hymns released in memory of the Christchurch massacre. Mike Braid's album cover of distorted faces for Villainy's third album Raised in the Dark has secured him a nomination for 2019. And last year's winner of Best Album Artwork, Jaime Robertson is back again this year for his design for Rhian Sheehan's A Quiet Divide. Lynn Freeman talked with all four designers, first asking Dick Frizzell when he started designing album covers: The winner will be announced tomorrow at Massey University's School of Music and Creative Media Production in Wellington..