Album cover artist Ioannis was born in Athens, Greece, but emigrated to the United States with his family as a child in 1967. He has a career that spans at least three decades, painting and designing cover images for artists such as Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, King Crimson, Dream Theater, Fates Warning, Extreme, The Tubes and many more. He is an important resource for a study of album covers since he has followed the development of the medium closely as a practitioner for almost 30 years (see also Ioannis’ website www.dangerousage.com for more information.)
My interview with Ioannis took place via e-mail in September 2011, almost in parallel with my interview with Travis Smith. For the same reason, my questions for Ioannis were quite similar to the ones I had for Travis. However, Ioannis’ answers are very different, especially when it comes to discussing the motivation behind making album cover artwork.
