There are so many intriguing things about Unrest’s final full-length, it’s hard to even know where to begin.

The Robert Mapplethorpe portrait of musician/journalist Cath Carroll on the cover, the rich history of lead singer Mark Robinson’s Teen-Beat label, Duran Duran’s Simon LeBon as producer, the fast and catchy pop perfection of songs such as “Make Out Club,” the mention of “no guitar effects or synthesizers used on this recording” — there’s so much to take in and digest. However, we’re just going to ignore all of that and focus on the very fitting Pump Triline typeface by British designer and typographer Philip Kelly, who is still independently producing typefaces today.

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Lemonade’s Diver is pure summery electronic pop, with enough darkness at its edges to keep from falling into saccharine territory. The cover pares well with the overall vibe — clean and minimal while evoking an unplaceable nostalgia. Recently we talked to the designer Tim Saputo about Gotham, photography and how obsessive listening helps music package design.

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Classically beautiful and hauntingly melancholic, Jacaszek’s Glimmer exists in that thin space between orchestral and ambient. Replete with harpsichord and clarinet, the Eastern European sensibilities of the Baroque period twist around the sounds of bitcrushed digital noise to create a delicate tension that makes the record compelling and beautiful.

The sleeve reflects Jacaszek’s moody atmospherics perfectly. Executed by Michael Cina—founder of the design studio, Cina Associates—the cover features a broken, fragile gold leaf ellipse set against a dark background. Both earthy and sophisticated, the contrast matches the simple elegance of the music. Recently, Rock That Font caught up with Michael Cina to discuss the cover design, naive craftsmanship and the value of not knowing your limits.

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It’s rare these days that an album grips me so completely as Bon Iver’s recent eponymous release. It’s an album in that classical, 60’s-era sense — every song is necessary and complete. Songwriter Justin Vernon has created a unified work that both touches on and transcends folk, soul, rock and chamber music. Maybe it’s Vernon’s work with Kanye West, maybe it’s his preoccupation with Bruce Hornsby, but Bon Iver, Bon Iver aims for the grand statement and wins; all the while managing to maintain that intimate scale that Vernon created on his debut, For Emma.
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Dean Wareham, the frontman for Luna, spent well over a decade perfecting his craft before he recorded the dream pop masterpiece Penthouse. A New-Zealand-born New Yorker, Wareham began his career in earnest with the seminal Galaxie 500, a three-piece that predated and prefigured the shoegaze movement. But Wareham had ambitions beyond their modest, but enviable, success. Luna was his next project and three records in, he and his bandmates hit creative gold with their paean to New York and moody nightlife, though not much gold apparently in the way of record sales. Regardless, it was a critical success and Rolling Stone put it in their top 100 albums of the 90s.
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