I'm a child of the CD era, and on my (CD) copy of this album, the pulsar pattern fills most of the cover. In college, I came across an LP copy, and I was struck

I'm a child of the CD era, and on my (CD) copy of this album, the pulsar pattern fills most of the cover. In college, I came across an LP copy, and I was struck by the difference: the pulsar pattern occupies a much smaller space in the center, with much more of the cover consisting of the black background. The Wikipedia page illustrates it well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Pleasures http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unknown_Pleasures (You can also see the LP version at the start of the video in the article, around 0:18). This is a cool example of how the size of the artistic canvas dictates what you can do (designers, is there a term for this?). I like this album cover because it illustrates the sound of the album well: power filtered through haunting, ethereal music. On the LP cover the figure is probably about the same size as on the CD cover, so it's just as distinguishable. But the predominance of the ground makes it feels starker and lonelier. The trouble with a CD cover-sized canvas is that if you shrink the figure proportionately, it just becomes hard to see. This illustration has been reproduced on shirts and tote bags and other larger-canvas media. I kind of wish those who did so would take advantage and scale it back down.