Andrew Dineley looks at Prince’s sleeve-design highlights, largely from the earlier part of a close to 40-year career. Befitting an astonishing catalogue of music, the designs were as diverse as the music they packaged…

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In 1978, just as punk was very publicly running out of steam in the UK, Prince’s first album was released. It arrived to very little fanfare; at the time, the music scene comprised mainly a confusing muddle of angry revolutionaries, refugees from the disco era and a few pioneering ‘new wave’ artists, all ready to be the next big thing. Prince, it turned out, would possess a little of each of these characteristics, along with many more compelling musical attributes.

The cover design of the first album, For You1, was deliberately enigmatic and understated. It depicted simply the artist in a motion-blurred, over-saturated headshot taken by Joe Giannetti.

In an interview with Liz Raiss for Fader magazine, Giannetti offered some insight into the development of this first cover design. “He was just beginning when I was hired to shoot the For You album cover. At the time, there weren’t a lot of makeup artists who understood how to do makeup for [black] people. But he had found someone who knew,” he said.

“[Prince] had a giant afro and made it clear he wasn’t going to cut it, so the hair kind of dictated [the cover]. He came in with two of his friends. All three of them were very at ease with doing this, which was a great relief, because a lot of the other people who were there were kind of uptight.”

During this formative period, Prince’s record label would purposefully promote him as the new Stevie Wonder – a credible newcomer who produced, arranged, composed and played all the musical instruments and sang his own material. The ‘dust cover’ was even credited as being designed by Prince, one of few creative areas that he would relinquish and delegate to other people during his career.

Within a couple of years, Prince had gained enough confidence for a brave restyle, daring to be so different that his image alone demanded that you take notice or else risk missing out. In 1980, he released the album Dirty Mind. 2 Its title inevitably dictated a considerably more risqué package than For You and spawned a challenging stage costume for live performances in that period. The black-and-white cover photograph, taken by Allen Beaulieu, immediately did its job as intended.