Carl Glover is a graphic artist who specializes in album artwork. He has created pieces for the like of King Crimson, The Pineapple Thief and No-Man. Carl was kind enough to answer some of my questions about his creative process and his work with Tim and Steven.
What’s your design philosophy when it comes to albums?
Ideally, making the album look like it sounds. Talking to the artists helps with this as they will give clues for the direction it should be taking.
How do you go about designing album covers? Is there a process you usually go through? Does it change depending on the artist/band?
I let a few days pass before doing anything so ideas can drop in place, usually this occurs during a long walk around London. It’s an inspirational place for me. Train journeys seem to be good for ideas too.
You initially started out with Bill Smith Studio. How did your time there influence your current work?
I started as a designer at i-D magazine, which was a baptism of fire as I started working there immediately after the job interview. It was a great place for learning things and a lot of interesting people would pass through, the money was dreadful but the fun was unbelievable – I ended up in a Wham! video because of i-D magazine! After i-D I went to Mainartery designing album covers for a few years, for some reason I was the typography guy. I worked on a lot of chart hits at Mainartery, stuff I would never be associated with now like Rick Astley, Sinitta, and the Blow Monkeys. I joined Bill Smith Studio in November 1988, I had a lot of freedom at BSS which was great as it gave me the confidence to start up my own business. After BSS I was Senior designer, then Art Director at Getty Images, but had my company Aleph Studio doing album covers running parallel. I went full-time in Summer 2003.
The work was very varied, all of us at the studio rarely had a choice on what the next assignment would be. It was more a case of who was free at the time, consequently I did a lot of covers for pop, soul, house, rap, rock and electronic artists. I learned more about what I didn’t want to do if given the chance, I valued timeless covers as a result.
Were you involved with the cover of Flowermouth and/or Marillion – Brave during your time there?
I designed Flowermouth and Brave while at BSS. No-man got in touch based on their liking of Marillion’s Brave, King Crimson’s THRAK, and Led Zeppelin’s Remasters all of which I had worked on at the time.
Do you listen to the album before creating the artwork and what do you gain from it if you do?
Sometimes, but not much. The conversations at the beginning do most of the heavy lifting. A good title will help tremendously.
What exactly is on the cover of Together We’re Stranger?
It’s a light trail made by a torch, made to look like it was going around two people. I wanted to show absence. I used one person, who moved sideways after the first pass with the torch to make space for the second outline.
Why was the artwork changed between the original 1996 version and the 2010 re-release of Wild Opera?
I didn’t have the artwork any more for the original version that I did at BSS, so used ‘new’ old imagery from my archive of vintage slides – the band and the label were very happy with it at the time.
What are your thoughts on the first two No-Man album covers (Loveblow and Lovecries – A Confession and Flowermouth)?
I like them both, I tend to think that a good no-man album cover would work well as a book cover and these two fit the bill perfectly. Paul White is a brilliant designer, some of his work with Bjork is amazing.
Why do you think Tim and Steven return to your artwork for new No-Man album covers?
I’ll ask Tim, it’s better coming from one of the band, otherwise I be making guesses.I really don’t know.
When we first signed to One Little Indian, no-man were locked into using the company’s in-house designer Paul White. Paul’s work was great, but not wholly suitable for the music of no-man. After the label and Paul had a dispute, the band were allowed to select their designer of choice. I’d been greatly impressed with the design on the King Crimson box set Frame By Frame and suggested we go to Bill Smith Studio. Though Bill was the name on the door, Carl Glover had been the person responsible for a lot of the work we liked by the studio. For me, Carl’s work managed to combine directness and mystery, and accessibility and experiment equally. In some ways, I saw what he was doing as a distinctive updating of styles I loved (1970s Hipgnosis and 1980s Peter Saville/Factory Records). We immediately hit it off with Carl on a personal level and all sides were delighted with the first results of our collaboration (Flowermouth). Since then, Carl’s artwork has become an important factor in promoting no-man and I feel that his imagery very effectively tangentially captures the essence of the music. My personal favourite covers are Together We’re Stranger, Love You To Bits and Flowermouth. Carl’s recent work for Plenty (It Could Be Home) was another case of an ideal meeting of image and music.
Tim Bowness via Carl Glover
Where there any pieces you did for Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson or No-Man that were rejected?
Hundreds. Most ideas are rejected, I tend to do six initially, but that can expand when dealing with more than one decision maker. Some of those rejected ideas find new homes over the years. It’s all part of what album design is about. It’s great when a personal favorite gets chosen.
How did your involvement with The Pineapple Thief – Your Wilderness come about?
Richard Beeching at Kscope got in touch asking for scans from old slides in my archive, I sent 90 across which I thought worked well with the title. They chose 22. I’ve collected slides and negatives since I was teenager back in the 1970s, there are tens of thousands of them.
How has the change from Vinyl to CD’s and now to streaming affected album artwork?
Not much as the shape remains the same throughout. LPs are the most fun to do but most people would feel the same I think. The last couple of streaming jobs I worked on have had sister-images to the album image for all the tracks, which has made them more worthwhile to do. I prefer printed matter.
Carl was kind enough to also answer my follow up questions
Where did the decision to re-do the artwork for Marillion – Afraid of Sunlight come from for the deluxe edition?
The decision lay with the band – they weren’t happy with the original sleeve and neither was I. The 1995 sleeve was the result of the record label interfering with the cover chosen by the band – they originally chose what happened to be the cover that you see now on the deluxe edition.
Both you and Lasse Hollie have worked extensively with Steven over the years. How would you compare your style and approach to his?
Very different – most of my photographic work is a means to an end, the subject is what I wish to show. Lasse is best described as an expressionist, his work is of an extremely atmospheric nature akin to artists like Edvard Munch or Francis Bacon. He’s a great guy with a brilliant sense of humor too, it’s our stylistic differences that makes it work I think.
How did the THRAK album cover and your involvement with King Crimson come about?
I did the design for THRAK as a result of working on VROOOM a while before. For VROOOM I was given a set of black and white photographs by my boss Bill, and told to do something interesting with them for a CD cover. The result was VROOOM – the type was inspired the lettering on an old butchers van I remembered from my childhood, I liked the shading. I worked on THRAK as a result of that. Once again I was supplied images collated by Bill: all visually representing the sound made by the album title, I was given free reign regarding the appearance of the package.
Were there any other King Crimson pieces you worked on?
The Great Deceiver box set, Frame by Frame box set, The First Three box set, California Guitar Trio, B’Boom, The Robert Fripp String Quintet and a few of the Soundscapes albums all spring to mind but I’m sure I’ve missed a few!
How did the Deadwing and Marbles album covers come about? Were there any alternate version’s created?
Regarding Deadwing, most of the heavy lifting had been done before it reached me – the band had already decided on the cover image and I was supplied with all that I needed pictorially, it was just a case of putting it together and making sure that it printed ok.
Marbles had a difficult birth cover-wise but I was pleased with how it turned out, especially since some of the alternate cover ideas became divider-spreads between song imagery in the 128 page special edition. There were about a dozen or so Marbles cover ideas, what was chosen was definitely the best!
Who would you say are your biggest influences when it comes to design and artwork?
Regarding people, I’d say Peter Saville would be number one, followed by Barney Bubbles, Wim Crouwel, Josef Müller-Brockman, Marcus Keef, Martin Sharp, and early Hipgnosis.
It was only with hindsight that I noticed that the area I grew up in (Hoo St Werburgh) was an enormous influence, especially the marshland with its curious structures from WWII scattered about in it. Objects have an unearthly presence in that landscape. I still find it inspirational but I wouldn’t want to live there again.
Where did your passion for collecting the slides and negatives (like those used for Your Wilderness) come from?
I find all photography fascinating, and believe that everyone has the potential of taking good pictures. I have always collected things, starting with the usual fossils, stamps, records, eventually leading to 1930s radios, synthesisers, guitars, ribbon microphones, art books, and lately cold-war pilot helmets…
One of the big motivations in collecting slides and negatives is seeing how we used to live. I also have a thing for the muted vibrancy found in old Kodachromes – somehow the most mundane subject becomes a piece of art by its colours alone.
All The Blue Changes 