Goodbye Yellow Brick Road Album Cover
This album cover was designed by Ian Beck for Elton John’s album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 1973. The first image is an original tracing of the cover idea. The second is the finished illustration on vinyl. Beck did his original sketches in pencil and slowly added color. You can also see his signature on the lower right-hand side of each illustration.
Ian designed the cover for Wait Till They Change The Backdrop by Jonathan Kelly in 1972. When Rocket Records- the company that Elton John was with at the time- saw the cover, they knew they wanted Beck to do the same design for Elton. In 1973, they called Beck for a meeting to discuss him designing Elton John’s new cover. Despite their desire to use the original image because they thought it encapsulated the album, they could not reuse it. Instead, Ian Beck designed a new cover entirely. They gave him access to Elton’s unreleased music and lyrics to be inspired by to help inspire multiple ideas for him to propose. He then had a little over a week to design and illustrate all three panels of album packaging.
Beck's design was inspired by old Hollywood and the Art Deco movement. The label also gave him some things to include that Elton would enjoy on the cover, resulting in the mini grand piano on the bottom. He then used his friend as a reference for poses and photos of Elton for his features. His friend was quite tall, explaining why the finished illustration features Elton with long legs. The model was wearing a baseball jacket, inspiring the outfit choice for the cover. Beck presented a handful of ideas for the cover. The record label ultimately decided that Elton stepping onto the yellow brick road was the best design for the album.
The cover design became one of the most iconic of all time. Beck’s illustration encapsulates all Elton wanted to share through the album. It ended up being Elton John's most successful album, getting him inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame and listed in Rolling Stone magazine’s list of 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. Royal Mail honored Elton with his album covers on stamps, with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road included in the series. Beck’s design is one of the greatest, and most successful album covers ever designed. It is an icon of album cover design.
