Consensus around here is that it is prog metal March. I checked the calendar and it is indeed March, so I’ve decided to weigh in by compiling a list of the biggest cliches in prog album art design. Intensive research went into polling the 900 songs in my iTunes library with a genre label containing the word ‘progressive’. While these visual elements can be considered cliche because of how often they are used, I think that the quality of (most of) the artwork is still high. If anything, it’s a testament to how the same elements can be used multiple times and still look relatively fresh. The list is a in descending order of how often I think each cliche element is used.

5. Mathy things, equations, visual representation of mathematical concepts

Covers appearing from left to right are (1) Scale The Summit - The Collective, (2) Mouth of the Architect - Time & Withering (3) The Human Abstract - Nocturne

I don’t have a lot of examples of this, but I’m absolutely positive that more math inspired covers exist. The new Scale the Summit artwork is probably the most glaring example, it depicts a pattern most commonly associated with sunflower seeds and other flowers, as well as types of broccoli, cauliflower and other natural things. The pattern is a visual representation of the Fibonacci sequence and the golden mean. It is composed of two opposite spirals superimposed on top of each other. I was reading an interesting article about the occurrence of this in nature, but I can’t find it again, so if you would like further reading try here or here. The Mouth of the Architect cover is essentially the same pattern.

The cover for Nocturne has some Da Vinci-esque sketches on it and from what I understand, that dude was pretty mathematically inclined. I know, weak example, but it’s the best I could do on short notice.

I know there has to be more math-inspired covers out there but I’m drawing a blank as to what and where they are. It’s kind of a bummer, because I love art inspired by math and data visualization work in general. If anyone has any suggestions of album art or design work inspired by mathematical concepts I would love to check it out.

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