Great 7" single/EP sleeves.

[Brundle-Fly]

Let's hear it for the little guys.

[Jockice]

Here Comes The Summer by The Undertones. Best single ever in the best sleeve ever. Both sides of it.

[Brundle-Fly]

Here Comes The Summer by The Undertones. Best single ever in the best sleeve ever.

And just for you, here it is, in all its pastoral glory.

[Jockice]

And just for you, here it is, in all its pastoral glory.

Brilliant! it was a genuine postcard design too. And I should imagine Derry was just like that in the late 70s.

[Sebastian Cobb]

[massive bereavement]

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Best single ever in the best sleeve ever.

Don't you mean:



(each hand coloured differently)

[wosl]

Wouldn't have been the cunt below cropping up in the Great Album Covers thread that sparked this thread, would it?  Anyhow, if you're going to have Cars, you have to have:

[Jockice]

Don't you mean:



(each hand coloured differently)

Great band, great single and great sleeve. But no. I don't.

You Can't Hide Your Love Forever is one of the greatest album sleeves ever. Possibly only bettered by 20 Jazz Funk Greats.

[Brundle-Fly]

Don't you mean:



(each hand coloured differently)

Brings to mind this gem.

[wosl]

Smashing.  The cover for Jimmy Jimmy is very good as well:



The cover for their best single, It's Going To Happen!, is a poor one, unfortunately.

[Brundle-Fly]

I like the cramped mundanity of the setting.

[Jockice]

Accidents Will Happen by Elvis Costello is another of the classics.

[Jockice]

Wooh, spooky. I didn't know Brundle-Fly was about to post that.

[wosl]

Almost every 7" cover from the golden era of Factory would probably qualify with ease (versos and disc labels included); the extra mile they would go with card stock and embossing/debossing and foil-blocking and so on made them stand out from the sub-Factory designs that poured out from other labels in their wake. A few prime choices:

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

Almost every 7" cover from the golden era of Factory would probably qualify with ease (versos and disc labels included); the extra mile they would go with card stock and embossing/debossing and foil-blocking and so on made them stand out from the sub-Factory designs that poured out from other labels in their wake. A few prime choices:

Brings to mind New Order's "Blue Monday" which was so elaborate that it allegedly cost Factory money on every single sold.

[Jockice]

I preferred the sleeve to the 12'' import version of Love Will Tear Us Apart.

[Brundle-Fly]

Denim's ill-fated single, Summer Smash was ...well...smashing.

[wosl]

I preferred the sleeve to the 12'' import version of Love Will Tear Us Apart.

I prefer the design of the 7" for that, but I do prefer the 12" cover of Transmission (blurry merry-go-round at night) over the 7" one posted above, and also greatly prefer both the 'Meecham' (snowy field/trees) and 'Crouwel/Van Munster' (stylised typeface/neon wall sculpture) Atmosphere sleeve designs to the Licht und Blindheit one, but this is a thread about 7" designs.

[massive bereavement]

[Brundle-Fly]

[Sebastian Cobb]

Brings to mind New Order's "Blue Monday" which was so elaborate that it allegedly cost Factory money on every single sold.

Quite common knowledge, but there's interview footage of Hook going 'people find that funny, I don't think it was fucking funny!'

I think factory also copied an idea off a book that was rough and fucked up all the books next to it and made a sleeve that was made up of sandpaper, cue critics panning the record and saying it was a shame the sandpaper wasn't on the inside of the sleeve instead.

[Pearly-Dewdrops Drops]

I think factory also copied an idea off a book that was rough and fucked up all the books next to it and made a sleeve that was made up of sandpaper, cue critics panning the record and saying it was a shame the sandpaper wasn't on the inside of the sleeve instead.

The Return of the Durutti Column! (Though not a 7", and it's actually an all-time great debut album rather than just a gimmick)

[Natnar]

[Gradual Decline]

[buzby]

Brings to mind New Order's "Blue Monday" which was so elaborate that it allegedly cost Factory money on every single sold.

The Blue Monday sleeve was progressively simplified once it became apparent they were losing money on each copy, First the silver-printed card inner sleeve was replaced with a black one, then the die cutting operation was omitted and eventually a the inner sleeve was replaced with a standard paper bag.

I think factory also copied an idea off a book that was rough and fucked up all the books next to it and made a sleeve that was made up of sandpaper, cue critics panning the record and saying it was a shame the sandpaper wasn't on the inside of the sleeve instead.

The Return of the Durutti Column! (Though not a 7", and it's actually an all-time great debut album rather than just a gimmick)

The sandpaper sleeve was Tony Wilson's idea, as he was a enthusiast of Dadaism and Situationist International. It was coped from the 1959 book Mémoires, by the leader of the Situationist movement Guy Debord and the artist Asger Jorn. It had a sandpaper outer jacket that was intended to damage any book that was placed next to it on the shelf, and the shelf or any other furniture it was placed on.

Wilson's idea was that the Durutti Column album should do the same thing, and damage any record that was stored next to it. The sleeve was made by pasting sheets of sandpaper onto a a normal album sleeve, and 3600 of the original sleeve were made before it was reissued in June 1980 with a more conventional sleeve featuring an painting by artist Raoul Dufy.

Peter Saville suggested the use of emery paper as it was more durable (the abrasive grains are fixed more securely and less likely to end up damaging the record inside) and looked more in keeping with Factory's design aesthetic. However, Wilson told him he had already bought sandpaper, 4000 12"x12" sheets of heavy-grit paper from an abrasives factory in Stockport. At that point Saville decided to leave him to it. Wilson offered members of Joy Division and A Certain Ratio £15 each to attach the sheets onto the card sleeves with wallpaper paste in Factory's office (Alan Erasmus' flat in Didsbury). Ian Curtis ended up doing all of Joy Division's allocation as the others ended up watching a porn video in the front room.

[gilbertharding]

[SteveDave]

SteveDave mentions the Beatles

[wosl]

That pic crops off the wavy edges of the sleeve opening!

[Ambient Sheep]

The Blue Monday sleeve was progressively simplified once it became apparent they were losing money on each copy, First the silver-printed card inner sleeve was replaced with a black one, then the die cutting operation was omitted and eventually a the inner sleeve was replaced with a standard paper bag.

Oh bollocks, I thought I had a die-cut original, but my inner sleeve is black.  First I've heard of the silver version.

I have three of the 7" singles in the O.P., complete with those sleeves.