Led Zeppelin Cover Artwork Part 3

Led Zeppelin III

Welcome to part 3 and to my personal favorite album of Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin III was released on 5th october 1970.

This cover is one of the most playful and craziest covers I’ve ever seen. It’s different and you can discover so much different stuff on it. It reflects the music of Led Zeppelin so much, because there is also a lot to discover and to dig and to listen to. It never repeats itself.

The cover itself was very innovative at this time and I would say, still is. The cover was designed by Zacron, who was a multi-media artist Jimmy met 1963. Zacron’s real name was Richard Drew. Zacron met the band members individually and took a series of photos of each of them and used it for the collage.

It’s a surreal collection of seemingly random images on a white background, many of them have something in common with flight or aviation, which took again the topic of the first two album covers, the Zeppelin itself and the aviator squadron photograph from the second album.

According to Zacron.com: “Each component became a formal abstract element, interacting with all the images to make a unified whole. The work created a surrealist environment, changing relative concepts of scale and subject matter. The square format became a visual theatre in which images could appear to move and have their own energy, some moved beyond the boundary.”

Here is the interior gatefold:

Behind the front cover you surely discovered the rotatable laminated card disc (or volvelle), covered with more images including photographs of the band members.

Here are some pics with Zacron and the band members. (Source: www.zacron.com)

If you turn the disc, the images show through holes in the cover. Zacron said of the visually complex artwork in 1970: “An album cover is not sound packaging, but an area of visual communication, an opportunity to put visual art and audio art together in a joint arena.”

It took Zacron four months to finish the artwork and he wasn’t satisfied with it at the end because he had to work to a deadline. Lucky him, Jimmy thought it was fantastic (although Jimmy said 1995 he found it teeny-bopperish). But here you have word against word. And it must have cost a fortune for Atlantic.

Some more about:

I Like Your Old Stuff

THE MASTERPIECE THAT IS LED ZEPPELIN III

Released on this day in 1970, the music and the cover artwork are as iconic as each other.

And yes, there was something else. Remember Jimmy was totally in Aleister Crowley? This album was the album where the first editions had some inscriptions on each side…

“So Mote Be It” means “Let it be like this” or “It Should Be like this”

“Do What thou Wilt” is the main message of Aleister Crowley: “Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law. Love is the law, love under will. There is no law beyond do what thou wilt.”

Fun fact: in France and other countries, the album was released with a different album cover (which was also the back cover of the first pressings). Zacron said he selected the photos as they showed the band “as the giant force they were in music.”

So I have a job for you now: I’m quite sure you all know the pics Zacron took for the cover. I want you to reblog the photograph. If you are not sure if it is correct you can message me first ;-)

And what is your favorite song? Mine is Friends and Immigrant Song.