Designing the packaging for the White Album

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The recording of The Beatles’ new album concluded in mid-October 1968, with its UK release following on November 22, 1968. The album’s packaging was designed September and October by pop artist Richard Hamilton in collaboration with Paul McCartney. Hamilton’s concept of a white cover, coupled with the eponymous title “The Beatles,” resulted in the album being widely referred to by its cover’s description: the White Album.

Before Richard Hamilton – “A Doll’s House”

Shortly after beginning the recording sessions for their new album, John Lennon suggested “A Doll’s House” as the album title, inspired by a 19th century’s famous play by Henrik Ibsen. However, this idea was abandoned when the English progressive rock band Family released their debut album “Music In A Doll’s House” on July 19, 1968.

Contrary to some belief, the Beatles did not commission artist-writer John Patrick Byrne to create a cover for “A Doll’s House“. Instead, his artwork was originally intended for Alan Aldridge’s 1969 book “The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics“, and was subsequently used for “The Beatles Ballads” compilation in 1980.

Another artwork depicting the Beatles’ faces on a cliff, reminiscent of Mount Rushmore, was purportedly considered for “A Doll’s House“. However, the details and origins of this particular artwork remain a mystery.

Choosing Richard Hamilton

For the artwork of their previous album, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” art dealer Robert Fraser, a friend of Paul McCartney and John Lennon, recommended the pop artists Peter Blake and Jann Haworth. It was again Fraser who proposed Richard Hamilton for their new album. Hamilton’s 1955 exhibition “Man, Machine and Motion” and his 1956 collage “Just what is it that makes today’s homes so different, so appealing?” are regarded by critics and historians as some of the earliest examples of pop art. Notably, Peter Blake was once a student of Richard Hamilton at the Royal College of Art in the late ’50s or early ’60s.

Robert had said, ‘What about Richard?’ I knew his work, I knew “Just What Is It That Makes Today’s Homes So Different, So Appealing?”, so I said, ‘Let’s see how it goes. He might hate the idea.’ And Richard started to get into it so I got encouraged and thought that he would be good to do it. Because, even though I admired Robert, I couldn’t just take his word for it.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

A nice thing about the album was the cover. I had a lot of friends in the art business, and with Sgt Pepper I had been involved with Robert Fraser. I knew a lot of artists through him, and one of his people at the time was Richard Hamilton. I’d been to a couple of exhibitions and I liked Richard’s work, so I rung him up and said: “We’ve got a new album coming out. Would you be interested in doing the cover?” He said he would, so I asked everyone. They said ‘yes’ and then they let me get on with it, really.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

I tried to get him interested in the whole thing. I laid out what it was we’d got. We’d got an album coming out, we hadn’t really got a title for it. “I’d like you to work on the cover. We’ve done Sgt. Pepper. We’ve worked with a fine artist before and I just had a feeling you might be right.”

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Co-designing the packaging

While Richard Hamilton was involved, he wasn’t the sole person in charge. Paul McCartney played a pivotal role in the packaging project, with contributions from Apple’s art director Jeremy Banks. Photographer John Kelly was also involved to take photos of The Beatles.

The management of the cover’s production with Apple and EMI was entrusted to artist and graphic designer Gordon House. House had already collaborated with The Beatles on the “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” packaging. Peter Blake enlisted House’s typographic expertise for the album’s back cover.

The white cover

Richard Hamilton’s design for the White Album was a stark departure from the vibrant cover art of “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band“.

It could be speculated whether Hamilton was influenced by the Apple Shop mural story. The Apple Shop, which opened in December 1967, originally showcased a psychedelic mural by the collective The Fool. However, following complaints from the Westminster City Council, it was overpainted in white by May 1968.

Each album copy featured a unique serial number, which Hamilton described as creating “the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.” The first four copies were reserved for the Beatles themselves, making serial number 0000005 as the first publicly sold copy.

In a 1991 interview, John Kelly claimed that the concept of the white color and the unique numbers on the album sleeve was his idea, not Hamilton’s.

Since Sergeant Pepper was so over the top, I explained, “I would be inclined to do a very prissy thing, almost like a limited edition.” He didn’t discourage me so I went on to propose a plain white album; if that were too clean and empty, then maybe we could print a ring of brown stain to look as if a coffee cup had been left on it — but that was thought a bit too flippant. I also suggested that they might number each copy, to create the ironic situation of a numbered edition of something like five million copies.

Robert Hamilton – From “Blinds & Shutters – The Story of the Sixties” by Michael Cooper

At the time I did a whole lot of fashion and beauty kind of stuff and I was very much into white. Different shades of white and I made a Christmas card which was all white. I printed matte white lettering on it. You couldn’t really read it unless you held it at a certain angle …. So white was it for me in that period and John Lennon in particular was fond of white. He used to wear all white during that period. I got this idea to do this cover, also the idea of the numbers on the album sleeve. The Beatles liked the idea.

John Kelly – Photographer – From Beatles Unlimited fanzine #99 November/December 1991

It was an interesting time, when everything was very free. And of course Paul, who was the moving light behind any of the sort of executive decisions that were being made by the Beatles, the organizational apparatus would be under Paul’s control — he would have gone to Robert [Fraser] and said, ‘Who do you think might do a poster for — or record sleeve — for us?’ And Peter Blake on the Sgt Pepper album cover did this wonderful assemblage of culture heroes, and it was a very significant moment I think, even in the history of cover sleeve designs, for Peter Blake to do that. Because this was the image that people remember of the era.

Then they were about to embark on their next project, which is now known as the White Album, but it’s known as the White Album simply because I said, ‘I can’t follow Peter Blake. I can’t fill the cover with anything as exciting as he did. So I’ll back out. I’ll just make it white.’ And this idea was accepted, I think partly because Yoko Ono would have seen the point. I think she may have been influential. I’m not sure that they quite understood. All I wanted to put on it was a number, to make it an edition of five million, and they should be numbered from one to five million. That seemed to me to be a Fluxus idea. I would have liked to have signed them all if it were possible in a way, to make it a real art object.

Richard Hamilton – From “Groovy Bob: The Life and Times of Robert Fraser” by Harriet Vyner, 1999

Richard had the idea for the numbers. He said, ‘Can we do it?’ So I had to go and try and sell this to EMI. They said, ‘Can’t do it.’ I said, ‘Look, records must go through something to put the shrink wrap on or to staple them. Couldn’t you just have a little thing at the end of that process that hits the paper and prints a number on it? Then everyone would have a numbered copy.’

I think EMI only did this on a few thousand, then just immediately gave up. They have very very strict instructions that every single album that came out, even to this day, should still be numbered. That’s the whole idea: ‘I’ve got number 1,000,000!’ What a great number to have! We got the first four. I don’t know where mine is, of course. Everything got lost. It’s all coming up in Sotheby’s I imagine. John got 00001 because he shouted loudest. He said, ‘Baggsy number one!’ He knew the game, you’ve gotta baggsy it.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Then he had the idea to number each album, which I thought was brilliant for collectors. You’d have 000001, 000002, 000003, and so on. If you got, for example, 000200 then that would be an early copy – it was a great idea for sales. EMI weren’t easy to persuade and they said they couldn’t do it. I said: ‘Look, if a milometer can turn over, you must be able to do that with every record that goes out.’ And they found a way. I think they stopped at some point, so not all ‘White’ albums have the numbers on them. But it was a good idea and we got the first four. John, I think, got the first one. He shouted loudest!

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

I got number one – because I’m lovely! John was actually the kindest and most loving overall, when he could be. And he wasn’t quite as cynical as everyone expects. I got number one here and number four in America.

Ringo Starr – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

It was Paul who had decided that each album should be individually stamped with a separate number. He confided in me that this was to be part of a unique marketing strategy. Paul said, ‘In a few months, we’re going to have an enormous lottery, and the person with the winning number will win some fantastic prize. It’ll be a real selling point. Everybody will want to buy the album to get that number.’ I said, ‘Actually Paul, I really don’t think that’s such a terrific idea. It sounds a bit cheap to me. The Beatles don’t need those kinds of gimmicks to sell records.’ He replied, ‘Yeah, Pete. I suppose you’re right.’ But, that’s why each White Album sported its own number. I, incidentally, ended up with album number 8.

Pete Shotton – From “The Beatles: Off the Record” by Keith Badman, 2008

Richard Hamilton considered incorporating subtle elements into the white, but these ideas were ultimately shelved.

Richard was very minimalist, and he wanted to have a completely white cover and emboss the word ‘Beatles’ on it. At that time he had a friend who always smudged things, like a bit of chocolate or whatever, so Richard wanted to put an ‘apple smudge’ on a bit of paper. That proved hard to do, so we said: ‘Look, let’s just leave it at the white cover.’

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

Richard had a friend from Iceland, the artist Diter Rot, who used to send him letters smeared in chocolate, and Richard liked that a lot, so then the idea grew; he said, ‘Well, maybe we could do something like that with an apple. We could bounce an apple on a bit of paper and get a smudge, a very light green smear with a little bit of pulp.’ But we ended up thinking that might be hard to print, because inevitably if these things do well, there are huge printings in places like Brazil and India and anything too subtle like a little apple smear can be lost, can just look like they printed it crappy. So that idea went by the wayside.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

Deciding on the album title

The title “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was chosen early in the recording process and significantly influenced the team designing the album cover.

In contrast, the White Album had no definitive name when Richard Hamilton joined the project. Embracing minimalism, he inquired if an album had ever been titled simply “The Beatles.” Finding none, this became the official title for the White Album.

Richard asked, “Has there been an album called The Beatles?’ so I referred back to EMI and they said, “No. There’s been Meet the Beatles, introducing the Beatles in America, but there’d never been an album called The Beatles.” So he said, “Let’s call it that”; which is the official title of the White Album.

Paul McCartney – From “Paul McCartney: Many Years from Now” by Barry Miles, 1997

[Richard] asked, ‘Have you ever had an album called The Beatles?’ I said ‘no’ and checked back because I wasn’t sure. It had always been: Beatles For Sale, Meet The Beatles, With The Beatles. There had always been something similar, but never just The Beatles. So Richard said that was what we should call it, and everyone agreed.

Paul McCartney – From “The Beatles Anthology” book, 2000

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