Whether you’re holding a record sleeve or a smartphone, you use your eyes to engage with your music too. We’re told to not judge a book by its cover, but album art helps convey a musician’s vision and colours how we perceive their music. From bold images to understated designs, we asked our Demo contributors to name their most eye-catching album covers of 2014.

Flying Lotus – You’re Dead!

Displaying eerie artwork similar to his music video for “Ready Err Not”, Flying Lotus’s album cover takes the cake for me for 2014. There is so much depth to the art that while your eye looks deep into the hole put into the head in focus, you begin to notice the precise and gory detail that is put into the elaborate work of art. I definitely want to look into picking up this album in vinyl so I can display the cover art in a frame. – Claire Cowan

Karen O – Crush Songs

Looking like some sort of 16-year-old girl’s doodle found on her Tumblr, the cover of Karen O’s Crush Songs captures the feel of the album perfectly, which is ripe with references to first loves, adoration, and butterflies in the stomach. I’m a total sucker for stuff like that — maybe because I’m not that much older than a 16-year-old girl — and this cover personifies those exciting emotions. – Emily Scherzinger

– nominated by Emily Scherzinger and Elysse Cloma

Paloma Faith – A Perfect Contradiction

When I first look at the cover for A Perfect Contradiction, it reminds me of The Entombment of Christ by Caravaggio. The whole picture is very exquisite, and conceal a lot of deeper thoughts behind this cover. It helps the audiences to envision a certain scene when they listen to the album. It’s definitely a successful album cover. – Alexander Si

S. Carey – Range of Light

– nominated by Angelo Mateo

Sharon Van Etten – Are We There

– nominated by Stuart Oakes

Shellac – Dude Incredible

– nominated by James Li

Andrew Jackson Jihad – Christmas Island

– nominated by Kalina Nedelcheva

Ought – More Than Any Other Day

– nominated by Melissa Vincent

Maximo Park – Too Much Information

– nominated by Ayla Shiblaq

TheStand4rd – TheStand4rd

– nominated by Sayem Khan