Dandroppedadime said:

He had some great designers, photographers and artists working with him post WB (producing some great work), but when it came down to the final choices about the album art and direction, Prince seemed to make the wrong decisions in a lot of instances. I won't go into specific albums but most had something about them that just spoiled them in some way (fonts, photography, his choice of outfit/image etc). I think he was trying to break away from the 'boring' WB format of the simple typography with a nice photo, but didn't always see it through in the best way. I think it got better, maybe the earlier NPG records suffered from this - the one's on major labels tended to be a bit better IMO.

WB covers weren't boring; they were stylish and weren't trying to hop on what was hip at that time. Post Warner designs in the 90s were largely Steve Parke's loose discovery of Photoshop and it shows. I like his photographs but not his graphic design, though I'm well aware he was directed by Prince who, as said, might have steered things in the wrong direction.

The way the title for "Emancipation" was skewed, or the one of "The Gold Experience" was treated... it was so amateuristic looking. Good photoshop should not trigger you to think it's Photoshop; it should just be good design regardless of the tools being used to acomplish it.

Nevertheless, I'm happy to have the music that's on there

lion88 said:

I really love The Rainbow Children Artwork. I even have a poster framed

Overall I agree the Warner Artwork was better. It does not suck, still some good Artwork, like 3121 and One Nite Alone (live)

[Edited 9/11/20 9:20am]

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The typography of ONA Live was also horrendous. But yes, 3121 is one of the better ones.

I agree almost all the post-Warner album art is amateurish at best and downright embarrassing for a major artist at worst.
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God they mostly just suck.
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Exceptions: Rainbow Children. And I happen to think both HitnRun’s are kinda cool.
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The last super outstanding album cover was, in fact, Chaos and Disorder. Such a great piece.

paddypurple said:

databank said:

I had never cared for PE but when I saw the vinyl in a store some months ago, it blew my mind.

I think PE was one of the best, cover art wise

Yeah I gotta say that album cover is pretty dope. I had the same realization a couple days ago revisiting the album.