Album Covers Designed by Famous Visual Artists (Warhol, Basquiat…)

Sometimes the cover is the art. When a major visual artist designs an album sleeve, the record becomes a way to own a piece of their work — a gallery print you can hang for the cost of an LP. Across decades, some of the world's most celebrated artists have done exactly this.

Here are the most famous artist-designed album covers.

Andy Warhol — The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) & Sticky Fingers (1971)

Warhol owns this category. The Velvet Underground's peelable yellow banana and the Rolling Stones' working-zipper jeans on Sticky Fingers are two of the most famous covers ever made — pure pop art applied to vinyl.

Jean-Michel Basquiat — Beat Bop by Rammellzee vs. K-Rob (1983)

Basquiat produced the record and hand-designed the sleeve with his signature raw, graffiti-rooted drawing style. Original pressings are now extraordinarily collectible — a literal Basquiat you could once buy at a record shop.

Jeff Koons — Lady Gaga, ARTPOP (2013)

Koons created a sculpture of Gaga with a reflective gazing ball, set against a collage of classical art fragments. High-gloss, high-concept, and unmistakably Koons.

Banksy — Blur, Think Tank (2003)

Banksy's stencil image of two embracing figures in deep-sea diving helmets — tender and strange. One of the few times the elusive street artist worked on a major-label cover.

Robert Mapplethorpe — Patti Smith, Horses (1975)

Mapplethorpe's stark, intimate black-and-white portrait of Smith is as celebrated as his gallery photography. A defining image of both careers.

Takashi Murakami — Kanye West, Graduation (2007)

Murakami's vivid anime-style artwork sent the Dropout Bear flying through a colorful cosmos. The collaboration carried into Kids See Ghosts, bringing Superflat aesthetics to mainstream hip-hop.

H.R. Giger — Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Brain Salad Surgery (1973)

The artist behind Alien brought his biomechanical horror to prog rock — a dark, intricate, unmistakably Giger image years before Hollywood made him famous.

Damien Hirst — Red Hot Chili Peppers, I'm with You (2011)

Hirst placed a single fly on a white pill against stark white — minimal, clinical, and provocative, echoing his fascination with life, death, and medicine.

Salvador Dalí — Jackie Gleason, Lonesome Echo (1955)

Dalí contributed a surreal painting and liner notes for Gleason's mood-music album — a genuine Dalí on a 1950s easy-listening record.

Keith Haring — Various (incl. A Very Special Christmas, 1987)

Haring's joyful, instantly recognizable line figures turned several covers into pop-art statements, bringing his subway-drawing energy to the record bin.

Make Any of These Your Wall Art

These covers were always meant to be seen big. In PosterVibe, search the album and the cover art, tracklist, and year load into the editor automatically. Choose a clean template that lets the artwork dominate, customize, and export at 300 DPI for print.

Hang a gallery piece — at album-cover prices.

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Which artist-designed cover is your favorite? Tell us in the community.