"It’s weird, every little thing matters. What you name the record matters, what you name each song matters, the colour, the typeface you use – all that stuff changes the way you hear a record."

By this time next week, my 2010 will be complete. Two bands will have released two of my favorite records since, well, their previous releases a couple years ago. Titus Andronicus brought us The Monitor a couple months ago, and the National's High Violet arrives next week.

What's interesting this time is they both spoke extensively about the album art. I never thought about it a whole lot, but always just kind of figured album art came about in a pretty random manner — ending up in a happy accident at best.

So it came as a shock when Matt Beringer from the National explained:

"It’s weird, every little thing matters. What you name the record matters, what you name each song matters, the color, the typeface you use – all that stuff changes the way you hear a record."

A recent interview with Quietus divulged a good bit on how the High Violet cover came to be. The image is actually based on a sculpture by artist Mark Fox.

"I think we found the image before I figured out the title. For a while, when we were working with the title Summer Lovin’ Torture Party, we were going to have a pink cover with that being the title, which would be the last thing you’d expect us to do. But then we realized that that’s also kind of annoying and silly."

"But Mark’s work, I started looking at a lot of different artists and randomly searching, and seeing his stuff – he’s also from Cincinnati – his stuff has this the sense of the work of a madmen, with these intricate cut up words. That kind of thing just felt good for the record, because so many of the songs are these collages of thoughts and little ideas, and all these sonic elements and textures. The songs in many ways are these swarms of thought and emotion and sound. So that’s why a lot of his stuff seemed perfect."

Mr. Berninger goes on to explain how they even debated typography and language:

"The typeface you use on the cover changes the way the record sounds. It could be a million different things, so we’re obsessing over every little detail like that from the last minute. Is ‘Bloodbuzz' one word or two? I have to think about it for a couple of days, and then it’s clear that it has to be one word. Why? I don’t know. It makes the song sounds different."

Not to geek out too much, but it was a pleasant surprise to hear from a band that design matters to them.

Listen to it streaming at NPR until May 11.

Next week — a behind-the-design look at Titus Andronicus' The Monitor.

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