Roger Dean is an iconic artist most well known for his fantasy landscapes that have adorned album covers for the past 30 years. In addition to his work for the music industry he has worked in videogames, publishing, architecture and film. Dean’s most well known work was album covers created for Yes and Asia.

Yes - Fragile (LP, front cover, 1971)

Yes - Fragile (LP, back cover, 1971)

Yes - Close To The Edge (LP, front cover, 1972)

Yes - Close To The Edge (LP, inside spread, 1972)

Yessongs was a live 3 disc album and continued a theme from the back cover of the first album, Fragile. The album art continues the story of the planet breaking apart from the Fragile back cover. With the extra space given due to the album’s foldout 4-panel design, Dean was able to illustrate a timeline of events. On the back cover illustration, Escape, shows the lingering pieces of the destroyed planet. Arrival shows pieces of the planet landing into the waters of a new planet. In the next image, Awakenings, you see development of plant and animal life on this new planet. In Pathways you finally see the development of civilization on the new planet.

The story depicted on this album is also the basis of Roger Dean’s film, Floating Islands, which is currently in development.

Yes - Yessongs (LP Live, front cover, 1972)

Yes - Yessongs (LP Live, Escape, back cover, 1972)

Yes - Yessongs (LP Live, Arrival, insert 1, 1972)

Yes - Yessongs (LP Live, Awakening, insert 2, 1972)

Yes - Yessongs (LP Live, Pathways, insert 3, 1972)

Budgie - Squawk  (LP, front cover, 1972)

Budgie - Never Turn Your Back on a Friend  (LP, front cover, 1973)

Asia - Self-Titled  (LP, front cover, 1982)
“Asia” (Dragon) album cover design was later voted the second most successful album cover design of all time, (after “Sergeant Pepper” ) by readers of “Rolling Stone” magazine.

Asia - Alpha  (LP, front cover, 1983)

Asia - Astra  (LP, front cover, 1985)

Uriah Heep - Demons and Wizards (LP, front and back cover, 1972)
This cover garnered a bit of controversy over the hidden imagery of male and female genitalia in this illustration.

Pink Floyd/ London Philharmonic Orchestra - Us and Them  (LP, front cover, 1995)

Birdsongs of the Mesozoic - The Iridium Controversy  (LP, front cover, 2003)

From the mid-1980s to early 1990s Roger Dean did most of the cover art for Psygnosis’ video games which were published on the PC Commodore Amiga, Commodore 64, Atari ST and Amstrad CPC.

Psygnosis Logo and Wordmark (Video game company corporate logo, 1985)

Brataccas (Mindscape Inc./Psygnosis, 1986)

Baal (Psygnosis, 1988)

Obliterator (Psygnosis, 1988)

Agony (Psygnosis, 1992)

Ork (Psygnosis, 1992)

Here is a short video with Roger Dean briefly explaining his process of creating a cover for a British band, the G.O.D.S. (Gentlemen of Distorted Sound).

Images were taken from RogerDean.com, Psygnosis.org and Album Art Exchange. All rights reserved to the respective owners of the showcased material.