Lost Sirens is New Order‘s ninth album. The album was released in 2013 and contains material cut from the their 2005 album, Waiting for the Sirens’ Call. I like the album, even though it is just a bunch of B-sides, but I always thought that the cover art felt out of place. This is not meant to disparage the design work of Studio Parris Wakefield (now Colour + Form). The same design studio has been responsible for some incredible graphic design work over the years, including the cover art for Pulp‘s This is Hardcore and Suede‘s Coming Up albums. Though, placing the latter two cover designs next to the Lost Sirens design one can’t help but think that something is amiss.
Lost Sirens seems out of place in this lineup.
I wanted to see if I could maybe improve on the sleeve art, or at the very least create something that I felt looked more like a New Order album cover. Like with my previous foray into cover design, I opted for the larger canvas a vinyl record affords the designer. For this design I wanted to use photography and a grey white background that mirrored that colour scheme of the previous albums. I also needed to incorporate some kind of abstract visual, as they had abstract elements on every cover since their Joy Division days. Lastly, I needed a siren for my cover, and there is no better siren than my gorgeous wife, Caroline.
Her striking red hair and features draws in the viewer, while the ornate crown and headphones paints her as a regal, majestic, and mysterious figure. All previous New Order and Joy Division album covers had an air of mystery around them, yet it is strangely absent from the original design.