Description

The cover of 1989 is a Polaroid with the top cut off. Taylor Swift's face is cropped just below the eyes, so we see red lipstick, part of her hair and a lavender sweatshirt embroidered with flying seagulls, but never her gaze. Her initials are written in black marker in the bottom left corner and the title in the bottom right, the way you might label a snapshot in a photo album.

Swift, who was creative director for the packaging, wanted mystery. She said she chose a picture that hid "the emotional DNA of the album," so that listeners could not tell straight away whether it was a happy record or a breakup record. For her first official pop album, named after the year she was born, the instant camera also signalled a romantic idea of the 1980s and of memory itself.

The Polaroid theme ran through the whole package. The photographic duo Lowfield shot more than 400 Polaroids, and each CD came with one of five sets of 13 random prints showing Swift in New York and in the studio, many blurred, off frame and covered with handwritten lyrics. Released on 27 October 2014, the album helped spark a revival of instant film; Polaroid's chief executive credited it with bringing back interest in the format. Billboard ranked the cover 50th on its 2023 list of the best album covers of all time.

Credit

Creative direction by Taylor Swift