Description

Kraftwerk dressed for The Man-Machine as if they were a poster. On the cover the four members stand on a staircase in identical red shirts and black ties, with pale faces and red lips, their heads turned the same way like figures on an assembly line. Above them the band's name and the title run in bold black and red diagonals, set against flat colour. The photograph is by Günter Fröhling, and the overall concept is credited to Ralf Hütter.

The graphics came from 1920s Russia. Karl Klefisch built the artwork on the style of El Lissitzky, the Soviet constructivist and suprematist designer, and the inner sleeve says so plainly: "Inspired by El Lissitzky." The back cover adapts an illustration from Lissitzky's 1922 children's book About Two Squares: A Suprematist Tale of Two Squares in Six Constructions. Constructivism had imagined art made like machinery for a modern society, which was exactly how Kraftwerk presented themselves.

The look matched the music. Released in spring 1978 on the band's Kling Klang label, The Man-Machine included "The Robots" and "The Model", and it pushed Kraftwerk's image of musicians as programmed machines further than ever. For the 2009 remaster, the artwork was carefully reconstructed by Johann Zambryski.

Credit

Cover concept by Ralf Hütter; artwork by Karl Klefisch, inspired by El Lissitzky; photography by Günter Fröhling