In Monorail, we often like to show each other a sleeve that we’ve fallen in love with for whatever reason – this can just as easily be something which is superbly bold or more subtle in intent.

There are no real rules – a strong looking photo with a well chosen font or no font at all can work just as well as a wild looking illustration, collage or scribble. Relating to Glasgow sleeve designers, our selection is quite personal, and maybe, not so modestly, includes records that we’ve been involved with in various ways.

Richard Youngs, Luke Fowler and Paul Thomson (The Glasgow contingent of AMOR) are all regulars and long-standing friends of the shop. The artwork for this and their previous 12” by Robert Beatty (an internationally renowned designer who’s made work for everyone from Kesha to the New York Times) is sensational: “retro” enough to fit the 70s Disco 12” motif but also kind of utopian and optimistic.

— Michael

This is definitely more gallery than record shop, without any of the regular sleeve tropes which usually help us sell a record – artist name, title, photograph, image. Instead the buyer is invited into a collection of Alasdair Gray’s spoken word pieces via another younger artist (Lucy McKenzie and her Decemberism label) with the lack of information seeming to suggest equal billing between artist and curator. It’s odd but I like that it breaks established rules.

— Stephen

It’s so striking and so bold, a really strong first statement for a debut record. Also, the colours are pretty extreme, but also visually really pleasing. The band had been coming into the shop since they were kids and Apéro was our Album Of The Month. Lewis Cook from the band did all the design, it was released on a staff member’s label, so it has a nice back-story too.

— Michael

On Monorail co-owner, Dep Downie’s label, Watts Of Good Will, the full scale and maddening individuality of each sleeve can only be appreciated if you see all of them together. Each sleeve was die-cut and individually designed by the band so no two sleeves were the same. It was a beautiful project and it should come as no surprise the band consisted of many different luminaries of the Glasgow art world.

— Michael

This is maybe the most fine art approach to sleeve design in our selection, reflecting group leader, Tony Swain’s other life as a working artist represented by The Modern Institute. It manages to show off both National Bedtime’s music and Swain’s complex, un-flashy painting/collage style. Printed on reversed board with typography by Marc Baines, it’s a perfect companion to the understated, gorgeous music.

— Stephen

In a way we should have maybe chosen an Ela sleeve with her own artwork which is always going to be the best visual accompaniment to her incredible music, which we all love. That said, Lost, is exactly the kind of record you would have to pick up off the shelf because of the amazing photograph of Ela as a young girl in Poland in the early 1980s. In an instant you see not only her intensity but also that she’s a really interesting person. Of course you’d want want to listen to and find out about the record.

— Stephen

The Pastels are one of the groups most closely associated with the shop. Each sleeve is usually arrived at by a combination of Katrina Mitchell, Stephen McRobbie and former member, Annabel Wright. For Slow Summits, Annabel came down to the shop, looking at sleeves on the racks and trying to get a feel for what might work with the music. She decided to make a series of paintings and a consensus on the sleeve front was quickly agreed. The type was hand printed by Edwin Pickstone from one of his less popular fonts. Fair to say, it all came together a lot quicker than the music.

— Stephen

Another in-house production, of sorts, Sacred Paws are a perfect representation of the community we represent. Comprised of a staff member, Eilidh Rodgers plus other friends of the shop and with vibrant artwork created by Golden Teacher protagonist Ollie Pitt, the sleeve is a pitch-perfect visual representation. Busy but perfectly harmonious, full of energy and life.

— Michael

Richard is something of an avatar for the shop, an artist so uncompromising and surprising that it really wasn’t unexpected that he’d do something like May, a beautiful album with a sleeve that sums it up perfectly: an evocative, if simple, image rendered on a reverse board sleeve with slightly washed out colours, reminiscent of the bucolic and vivid folk music he plays on the disc.

— Michael

A collaboration between two important Glasgow-based labels/selectors in the electronic music world, Optimo Music and 12th Isle’s first team-up was a visual and aural treat. Al White and Jamie Johnson’s design for the sleeve is masterful, a rich illustration that deserves pouring over, like liquid pearl swirling in a space. The more you look at this, or indeed any other 12th Isle sleeve, the more you discover.

— Michael