I was recently challenged to think of design I truly enjoy. While this is probably not what my boss had in mind, when I think of beautiful things, I think of Yeezus.

It may seem simple, but this album cover is my favorite of Ye's. 3 components make it special to me:

  1. The duct tape
  2. The reflectivity of the disc
  3. The fake CD package

Yeezus is an album that shocks your soul. I'm going to go in reverse order from my list because I'm writing this in one go (total stream of thought) and I'd prefer to end with the most striking of the 3.

The fake CD package reminds listeners of a bygone era, even at the time of the album's release. To Ye's fans at the time of the release, it represented their youth, and creates a rebellious air continuous with the tone of the entire album.

Yeezus album cover
Yeezus
The Dark Side of the Moon album cover
The Dark Side of the Moon

The reflectivity of the disc is prismatic. What I mean by this is that light refracts off of it, in a similar way to how Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon cover features a prism. I don't think this is a mistake; the reflection of light on the Yeezus cover is enveloped in darkness, similar to the aforementioned magnum opus. I believe Ye is directly choosing to allude to this album, in an effort to punctuate how, much like that album, Yeezus is unique and irreplicable.

The red duct tape holding the album together is my favorite aspect of the cover. It may be because red is my favorite color. With that being said, I like to think that the deeper reason, that the tape represents the humanity of Ye, how despite claiming to be a god on the album, he must use duct tape just as us lowly mortals do to hold his music together.