Tag: album covers

Damien Saunder’s book about maps on record covers, Maps on Vinyl, got a writeup in the Guardian last week.

Some designs address global social or environmental issues. Others map the mind, imaginary places, feelings, worldviews—or, in the case of Robert Fripp and Brian Eno’s The Equatorial Stars, deep space.

Among Saunder’s personal favourites is a sleeve from the long-gone Iowa alt rock band House of Large Sizes, showing a cake whose icing is decorated with a map, with a chunk missing. “It’s a commentary on how we’re consuming the world piece by piece, almost without noticing,” says Saunder.

Another favourite cover comes from Belgian punk band Hetze: an illustration of a globe dangling by a thread from the forefinger of an elegant, long-nailed hand, by tattoo artist Florence Roman.

Previously: Maps on Vinyl.

Maps on Vinyl: An Atlas of Album Cover Maps collects some 415 examples of record albums with maps on the cover. “The book is the brainchild of renowned Australian cartographer Damien Saunder, whose expertise has been utilised by Apple, National Geographic, Earth (the world’s largest atlas) and even Roger Federer. A keen crate-digger, he has amassed possibly the world’s most extensive private collection of records featuring maps on their covers, resulting in this one-of-a-kind book.” Self-published in Australia, it’s being distributed in the United States via The Map Center.

Related: Map Books of 2025.