Album and Poster Designs by Milton Glaser

These are just a few of the album covers and music posters designed by Milton Glaser during his career. He is credited with designing over 200 album covers. Despite being skilled in many design methods, Glaser was often recognized for colorful and illustrative covers. His use of colors and movement often felt reminiscent of the sonic waves created by music. As you can see, he often used warm color palettes with lots of reds, yellows, and oranges.

Of these examples, his simplest color palette was used for the Masekela album art. He uses black and white to really differentiate the hierarchy between elements on the cover. He uses this method on many of his illustrative album covers. Masekela is also the most geometric design, feeling less dynamic than the others. 

His most popular design is the silhouetted head with the colorful hair, a poster done for Bob Dylan’s Greatest Hits album. While it doesn’t feel like the most colorful, it contains a high variety of colors. He balances the color usage by using solid black and white. Designing a dynamic, colorful side and a clean, black-and-white side gives the final image balance. 

Of these covers, almost all have a white base. The only exception is Glaser’s design for Lightnin! Volumes 1 and 2. Sam Hopkins had Glaser design the covers for both volumes of his album. Because of how striking the original image was, Glaser continued the illustration with Volume 2 and chose to illustrate the back of the original image. Recognizing this album would be a breeze for fans of the first album. This design is one of the more detailed of the set. The lines through the man’s face and clothes create a nice texture to the whole image. It is also very fluid, using no sharp lines. Even the spiky yellow border around the man has rounded points. It makes the image feel friendly and smooth, emulating the smooth jazz recorded on the album. 

The illustration for The Baroque Inevitable is both simple and intricate. While the people are simple, Glaser took the time to render the patterns within all their clothing. The clean background forces the viewer’s eyes straight to the center of the image. Attaching the decorative swoop to the typography helps connect all the page elements. 

Milton Glaser was one of the greatest album designers of all time. His work is iconic and will remain popular for years to come.