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A black square album cover featuring the name “Ken Moore” in white sans-serif type. Two smaller squares, one white and one pale blue, are positioned in the lower left corner.

Minimalist record sleeves by Belgian graphic designer Jelle Martens

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Date
8 March 2016

Belgian graphic designer Jelle Martens’ latest work demonstrates a clear stylistic progression from work previously featured on It’s Nice That. Jelle’s recent record sleeve designs continue to reflect the minimalist themes demonstrated in earlier works, but represent a significantly refined visual direction and communicate an increased focused on bold contrast and singular objects portrayed in asymmetric layouts.

Featuring sans serif type that extends only as far as the musician’s name (front cover) and logically formatted track listings (back cover), the Ghent-based creative’s sleeve designs are consistently monochrome. The black and white backgrounds act to emphasise the relevance of Jelle’s presentation of select colours and abstract shapes, the definitive features of his visual interpretations of the music.

A white record sleeve lies against a black background. The cover features minimalist black text listing track titles for “Xom + Gulag” and “Limacon + Gulag” across two sides.
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Jelle Martens: VOD139. Galen Herod

A white square cover featuring a large, abstract blue shape in the centre. The name “Don Slepian” is printed in a simple black typeface at the top.
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Jelle Martens: VOD139. Don Slepian

A square black and grey cover features the names “Ken Moore & Stuart Rosenzweig” in white sans-serif type. A large, curved grey shape dominates the centre, creating a fluid, abstract composition.
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Jelle Martens: VOD139. Ken Moore & Stuart Rosenzweig

A white square cover featuring the name “Marc Barreca” in black capital letters at the top. A large, light grey rectangle sits in the centre with a small notch cut out of its left side.
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Jelle Martens: VOD139. Marc Barreca

A black record sleeve with white text listing track titles across two sides. The text includes headings such as “Early Tapeworm” and “Kinetic Experiments”, alongside a list of numbered songs.
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Jelle Martens: VOD139. Anode Productions

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About the Author

Milly Burroughs

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Milly Burroughs (@millyburroughs2.0) is a Berlin-based writer and editor specialising in art, design and architecture. Her work can be read in magazines such as AnOther, Dazed, TON, Lux, Elephant, Hypebeast and many more, as well as contributing to books on architecture and design from publishers Gestalten and DK. She is It’s Nice That’s Berlin correspondent.

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