In 1938, 23-year-old Alex Steinweiss designed the first-ever album cover for Smash Song Hits by Rodgers & Hart, replacing the paper brown vinyl record sleeves with a striking photo of New York’s Imperial Theatre. That simple act turned album covers into cultural artifacts. From bedroom posters to vinyl collections, they’ve become a graphic extension of the artist’s sonic vision.
Over the decades, cover art has become more than just packaging. From The Dark Side of the Moon and Abbey Road to Nevermind, iconic album covers have shaped subcultures, sparked debates, and stayed etched in memory long after the penultimate track. Today, they extend their influence to marketing and business strategies too. For instance, the global impact of Charli XCX’s BRAT went beyond pop culture iconography, becoming a masterclass in music marketing. Who knew the lime-green, blurry typeface-laden cover would be used as a visual aesthetic for US Vice President Kamala Harris’s social media campaigns, or hailed as “word of the year” by Collins dictionary? In the age of extensive rollouts, a simple, verdant visual became a global phenomenon, igniting the everlasting spark of BRAT summer. On the flipside, covers are also serving as social media triggers or hotspots of controversy (we tip our hat to you, Ms. Carpenter). From sparking lawsuits to dividing the internet, they’re now a consumerist specimen, immortalized through digital art, collector’s editions, and alternate versions.
India, too, is witnessing artists creating boundary-pushing visual identities. From the radioactive tones in Chaar Diwaari’s Jhaag to Hanumankind’s lore-laden Monsoon Season and Yashraj’s Meri Jaan Pehele Naach, the first Indian album to be featured on Cover Art Matters, musicians are leaning towards developing distinct visual narratives.
While we idolize the voice onscreen, the talent offscreen—photographers, artists, illustrators, and designers— seals the deal visually. At the forefront of the country’s audio-visual landscape, designers GOJI, Vaishnav, Aryan Singh, and Sahil Singh are rewriting the rules of design, one album cover at a time.
The Art of Digital Alchemy
Bengaluru-based “Serotonin Director,” Goji, and animator Vaishnav Menon don’t let themselves be bound by labels. Creating stunning visuals using AI, 3D assets, and animation, they’ve carved a niche for themselves amidst a slew of mundanity. Having designed South Side Big Dawg Hanumankind’s album Monsoon Season, they strive for boundlessness.
Growing up, magic fuelled Goji’s fascination with grand reveals. From watching David Blaine’s sleight of hand on TV to breathing life into static visuals, wonder, movement, and whimsy have become a part of his creative arsenal. Comparing his creative process to that of old internet alchemy games, the thrill of mixing traditional and new tools brought him that euphoric high. “The game right now is about remixing, and I feel agile is the best way to go right now,” he tells Rolling Stone India.
Method To The Algorithmic Madness
However, he was quick to discredit the labels. “I feel like I’m not really like an AI artist. That’s why I have this ‘Serotonin Director’ tag on my ID. I feel it’s the antithesis of the art or creative director; maybe just the way of seeing differently,” he explained. Developing a distinct eye for curation also spilled into music and art, leading him to pursue UX design in college. But the world of 2D, with expensive software and applications, simply wasn’t as invigorating. Luckily, a dysfunctional hard drive propelled him to shed his corporate skin and dive headfirst into AI and 3D.
In a world clogged with algorithmic madness, Goji has seemingly cracked the code. “There’s no excuse for not doing something now. It’s a very non-linear process, too, in terms of making your work extend forward or backward. It all ties back to a magic trick, right?”
In the same breath, he has created his IP “The Daydreaming Series,” which brings static pieces to life. These visual escapades have landed him projects with graffiti and mural artists, such as his childhood hero Tona, a self-taught German stencil artist. Converting his street art into kinetic visual treats, he gleefully mentioned the full-circle moment. Inspired by art history, desi maximalism, and John Berger’s “Ways of Seeing,” he has developed a distinct visual toolkit that guides his inner vision.
Likewise, Menon, who sees himself as a solutions expert, specializes in all things kinetic—motion graphics, 3D, and now AI too. “Initially, I remember wanting to be a comic book artist,” he reminisced. Pivoting from science to art opened novel avenues in the field of animation for the designer. “It gave me great joy in figuring out how to make things move.” Thriving on creative communities, he believes in the multiple dimensions that exist within one artwork. “A piece of artwork can be so multifaceted, larger than life. If you’ve a friend who can animate your 2D piece, or say convert it to 3D, it’s bringing the piece to its fullest potential.”
Crafting The Perfect Storm
Working as creative partners, they’ve cultivated a collaborative system. This was visible on the cover of Hanumankind’s Monsoon Season. The cover holds your gaze using four elements: the bank separating land and water, the brooding storm, the protagonist, and the large wave splashing across the bank.
An amalgamation of VFX and manual error, it captured the raw variety of emotions the mixtape had to offer, much like the menacing pluralities of torrential downpour. Director Bijoy Shetty pitched the initial idea of a son and his father standing next to a wave. While the father fearfully yanks the son away, his son waywardly gazes away. Menon, who worked on the compositing, spotlighted the dilemmatic aspects of the reference point: “It expressed that dilemma of whether you want to play with the view or run away from it.”
Even micro-details, such as the consistency of the water, were fine-tuned across countless iterations. “It was like a scrapbook approach, where you could swap out different elements,” added Menon. “Overall, the process was unique for all of us. There has been a lot of photoshopping that has gone into this.” Highlighting the importance of collaboration and curation, Goji added how such tools help channel creative focus, freeing them from the technical baggage of applications or heavy workload. “You can concentrate on the idea and feeling more, saving your energy for different things. In this case, the ‘why’ behind picking one iteration over the other becomes the more creative part of the game.”
While he ensures his creative process is untainted, Goji pointed out the identifiers of “lazy” AI. “You can tell when someone hasn’t put time into prompting, such as setting the focal length or the aperture of the image right. It’s also to do with the engine you’re using— a lot of keener-eyed artists have switched up to other image generators.”
Coloring Outside The Lines
Up north, Sahil Singh, the creative force behind many of Desi Hip Hop’s recognizable covers, including Chaar Diwari’s Farebi and Karun’s Quabool Hai, is currently also building his fashion brand “Medallion.” While he’s best known for his design work, Singh’s artistic roots run deeper. A lifelong artist and singer, Singh found solace in art from the age of two. “I would win state-wide and national competitions. My mom, who’s also artistically inclined, was supportive of my craft.”
However, a tiff with his parents—who’d rather have him wear a stethoscope than pick up a paintbrush—led to him getting kicked out. He spent a year in Canada with a relative. Yet, Singh contemplatively decided to drop out, return to India, and stick to his creative calling, leading him to take the most rewarding gambles of his career. At 16, unbeknownst to his parents, he started designing album art for the who’s who of the DHH scene. His breakthrough? Karun’s iconic Qabool Hai, for which he spearheaded the entire rollout. “Even though Karun and I have our differences now, at that time, he and his team trusted me fully. I was just 16 and they were happy to work with me,” he stated. “I never keep favorite covers, but if I had to choose, it would be that,” he coyly stated.
Concocting Creative Visions
Singh’s distinct style comes from deliberate choices. Whether it is using his friends as reference points for character-based projects or using the endless tonalities of the color red. “To keep faces consistent for a realistic character with detailed elements is hard, unless you’re drawing it a little more two-dimensionally. As for the color, any time I want to pour an emotion, strength, or warmth into an image, I’m immediately drawn to red.” Even though his works vary stylistically, be it through tribal art, surrealistic illustrations, or abstract forms, his work remains unmistakably identifiable. Aware yet grounded, he credits that to his innate adaptability. “I minimize the use of background elements, eliminating as many details as possible, keeping it solely subject-based.” This passion for building narratives is embedded in his process. “Everyone wants to be understood in unconventional ways. It feels satisfying when someone gets the message behind a piece of my art.” Likewise, with clients, he ensures that the discussions are as authentic and raw as possible. “It’s a very child-like feeling, you know, expressing your story or vision behind your craft.”
Process Over Product
A stickler for perfectionism, Singh is known to scrap full-fledged projects in an effort to draw out better ideas in the process of rebuilding. “I once made an artist cancel his release and delay it, because I had a better idea for the album cover. It did well; everybody loved it. The fact that people now trust me enough with their covers that they are ready to delay their release is really gratifying as well.”
A DHH fan himself, he’s seen it evolve from its early days. “People have started putting more respect on Desi Hip Hop; they’re proud to represent their favorite artists.”
Physical Media’s Comeback
Singh also acknowledged the ingenuity of today’s artists, who continue to create marvels sans equipment or software. “I started with a broken laptop myself, but I had the hunger to bring out an idea. It’s about the skill and your ability to translate your creative direction.”
Likewise, he’s seen the scene evolve from a promotional standpoint, too. Having designed Quabool Hai’s physical packaging, such as CD covers and displays, he remained hopeful of the re-surfacing of physical media in music. “Earlier, Indian Hip Hop albums would have merch just as promotional material; it was the bare minimum. But slowly, we artists started pitching ideas like physical media packaging to certain clients. When they grew hungry for more, even we started crafting more seriously. It’s so exciting to see physical media resurfacing.”
Setting New Rules
Being a young artist, it’s often easy to get swept away in the power dynamics of client relations. However, Singh is blunt about his philosophy: “Earlier, for bigger clients, I used to be inhibitive about speaking up. With time, I realized that these works go under my name. Now, I listen to the artist and their story wholeheartedly, adding my opinions on how I can re-interpret their craft, vision, or symbolism better.” He also stated how younger artists perceive him as a “spoilt” brat, yet he’s quick to refute: “They don’t know how hard I worked to get where I’m at today. Grow a pair of balls, stop fawning over the client’s ideas, and start communicating on an equal footing.”
Similarly, Singh has also seen the murky sides of dealing with clients. “If an artist behaves rudely, I straight up leave the project,” he firmly stated. There have been times when he was asked by bigwig musicians to copy existing artworks, Bollywood posters, and cookie-cutter templates surrounding metallic typefaces with little or no personality. Throughout this ordeal, he’s learnt to truly cherish the process rather than the outcome. “I’ve learnt to respect and love my craft more; I don’t fear losing projects anymore.”
Aryan Singh, AKA YungWuz, laughingly revealed the origin story behind the moniker. “It’s sort of weird that there’s no story,” he shrugs. “My name is Aryan Singh, the most default Indian name that you could think of. I needed something to stand out on Instagram, something without underscores or dots.”
Albeit laidback, 21-year-old Singh’s artistic anthology speaks otherwise. A realm of controlled chaos, his Basquiat-esque visuals have featured on the covers of artists like DRV and Central Cee. “At first glance, my work can look chaotic—bold colors, scribbles, all that. But there’s always structure beneath it.” His earliest memory of making art goes back to his childhood in Dehradun: That early spark translated to photography, too, one of Singh’s starting points. Eventually, his dad noticed the interest and got him a camera, which also led him down a rabbit hole of post-production and editing. A corporate stint at a German agency landed him his first tablet, and from then on, it snowballed into making fan art of his favorite rappers. “I was that kid who’d made rap and hip-hop his whole personality,” he mentioned. From a listener to a designer, Singh eventually landed commissioned gigs with Indian hip-hop artists for album covers. With no formal art background, he was on the precipice of getting accepted into Germany’s Bauhaus University. But he decided to stay put in India. “I was also building this here, and I realized if I left for four years, no one would remember. So I stayed.”
Between the Lines of Chaos and Control
Through local and global collaborations, Singh has struck a sweet spot between the client’s needs and his distinct style. “The goal is that the artist should feel like the artwork is personal to them, but people on the outside should also recognize that it’s my style,” he points out, referencing the cover art of Nakshatra, by Delhi-based rapper Dhruv Rajpal. “That was the first one that really took off. I was a fan of Rajpal before I worked with him, so for him to trust me with that was huge. It got traction because of him, but also because people really resonated with the artwork.”
Even projects like The Siege’s Bhaagna, Chupna, Doobna cover and recent campaigns with House of Hashbass and Misfits pushed Singh to capture nuanced emotions while embracing complete creative freedom.
Having built an international clientele, Singh still has a soft spot for the home base. “At the crux of it, it’s the same thing. The only difference is that international artists tend to be more articulate with briefs and revisions. There’s no middleman that you have to talk to. But creatively I enjoy [working] more with DHH artists.” He adds that tangibility has become a vital aspect of every artist’s rollout, extending beyond just vinyl records or CDs. For instance, he recalled how Ahmedabad-based rapper Dhanji, in a series of firsts, had commissioned him to create an ashtray as a merch product. Versatility of designs remains paramount too. “You’ve got to become more mindful of where it’s going. Even if it’s a typography-based project, it needs to look good on fronts, be it a T-shirt, digital cover, or even a tattoo,” he stated.
DHH’s Emerging Visual Landscape
On the design trends shaping the current wave, he acknowledged how the DHH scene has grown more visually experimental. “We’ve come a long way from those typical trap music visuals. Everything has so much personality to it, an homage to their cultural influences. From Nineties nostalgia to video games and Memphis rap, there’s a raw-DIY appeal. It’s not as polished, but it gets the job done.”
Singh himself was at the forefront of mixed-media style, with his animation stint for KR$NA’s “Hola Amigo” emerging as an instant hit. “I don’t want to brag, but ever since that dropped, every third music video has some mixed media stuff in it. It’s not that I invented it or anything—it’s often low-effort, like a sasti copy. But I guess everyone has to go through their cringe phase and eventually embrace it.”
The Price Of Potential
Not one to romanticize anything, he emphasized how important it is not to undersell your inherent worth for instant gratification or clout.“Everyone undervalues themselves in the beginning. I charged ₹2000 for my first cover when I was 16. At that time, I was like, ‘What do I need more money for?’ The issue is, it’s hard to raise your rates later.” He adds that while he’s noticed new artists often hesitate to talk money, especially when they admire the artist commissioning them, their contribution is equally important. “In a good way, it’s really not that deep,” he signs off.
