How Yoanna Zarkin Designed 2000+ Album Covers
The creative process behind building a massive stock library for music platform [untitled]
This week’s piece is brought to you by Tuneshine, a lo-fi digital display for your album art. Tuneshine connects to Spotify, Apple Music, Sonos, and last.fm, freeing your album artwork from your phone and tastefully elevating it to a prominent place in your living room, office, or wherever you listen to music.
The way we listen to music is changing. For far too long, streaming services haven’t served artists’ interests, and over the past year, we’ve seen that come to a head in boycotts and exposés (recommended reading: Jen Pelly’s Mood Machine: The Rise of Spotify and the Costs of the Perfect Playlist). New platforms have formed in an attempt to find a solution for a better future in which both musicians and fans can thrive. One of these new avenues is [untitled].
Founded by family friends Dan (Dancho) Lilienthal & José Chayet, the business describes itself as “a sacred place for your work-in-progress music.” Artists can record, upload demos, share their music on socials, and sell their releases to fans all in one place. From a visual standpoint, the platform’s clean aesthetic is par for the course, but what sets it apart is its stock library of album art, which includes over 2,000 covers designed by Yoanna Zarkin.
From Guadalajara, Mexico, Yoanna first began her creative practice taking photos as a teenager. Without any music or artists to inspire the [untitled] covers, Yoanna’s native medium guided her inspiration on daily walks. Pictures she would snap on her phone would become references, lending a diaristic quality to the library. She pushed herself to try visual styles and color palettes she normally didn’t gravitate to. “It was about designing for everyone, no matter the genre,” she explained over coffee.
With a massive task ahead of her and about 4 months to complete the project, Yoanna set a daily goal of sketching at least 20 covers. Some would take one hour, others would take two seconds. With the work-in-progress ethos of [untitled] in mind, the pressure to create the perfect cover fell to the wayside. An album art designer in her own right, she reminded herself that less was more and collaborated with nontraditional graphic designers, such as architects and 3D artists, to build an impressively dynamic repertoire for users to choose from.
Interested in seeing which covers are most popular across users, [untitled] gave me a look behind the curtain. The art leading the pack is a metallic CD on a black background, reflecting the rise of physical media on covers. Not far behind is a blue-and-orange gradient with folds resembling a mountainside, a close-up black-and-white photo of a woman smoking a cigarette, a detail of a car with thin shadows grazing the hood, and a photo of a city skyline at sunset.
While designing 2000 covers is daunting, sifting through the database is like flipping through a museum catalog. Browsing through at random, one recognizes elements and trends throughout music history. We see brutalist photographs, like on the cover of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and heat-treated images like on BROCKHAMPTON’s iridescence. If you’re more of a color-based searcher, like many musicians who experience synesthesia, there is a tool that lets you filter the covers by hue. Users can also, of course, upload their own art too.
Roaming through the [untitled] catalog reveals just how vast the art of album covers is. It feels novel for a music platform to put album art at the forefront of its product. As a process-based service, [untitled] gently reminds its users to consider the visual aspect of their project. Album art is not the last part to complete, but instead a component made in tandem with the music, perhaps even influencing the sound.
Some housekeeping for the week! ICYMI: I announced my first in-person album art panel in New York City with visual artists Craig Braun, Isha Dipika Walia & Camilo Medina. Unbelievably, you all sold out that s*** out in less than 24 hours! I feel completely bananas, just like that cover Craig helped design with Andy Warhol for The Velvet Underground. Thank you, It’s Nice That, for the kind shout-out as well.
There is a chance we’ll release another small batch of tickets, so I suggest signing up for the waitlist to get notified if and when we do. I also announced a paid tier for access to recorded footage of the panel, for those who don’t live in New York or can’t make it. We’ll be discussing album art as a creative practice and how that process has changed over generations.
Second matter of business: I have an album art radio show on franknews! Since February, I’ve been using the visual history of cover art as a vehicle for listening to and connecting music that wouldn’t normally live together. Some themes that I’ve explored in this newsletter have transformed into episodes, such as solid colors and body crops. Take a listen and let me know what you think!
Thank you again to this week’s sponsor, Tuneshine, a lo-fi digital display for your album art that works great for streaming music, Sonos speakers, and physical media via the Shazam feature in the Tuneshine app, with support coming soon for popular media server setups. Tuneshine is designed in Oakland, CA, assembled by hand in Chicago, IL, and starts at $199.99.
The Art of Cover Art is a free educational and inspirational resource. If you have $5/ month to spare, it would be super helpful in furthering my research. You’ll also get access to video footage of my first album art panel hosted on May 20th, 2026. Or, if you think a friend might enjoy this newsletter, the best way to pay it forward is by sharing!
This is someone living my dream!! I am imagining creating my own gallery for album art now.
2000!!??
Went in expecting some twist like - "she went where no other artist would dare - AI" but it turns out if you're passionate and committed enough anything is possible.
Who knew?