Sleep Well Beast

Packaging and marketing[edit]

The artwork for Sleep Well Beast consists of a black and white photograph, shot by Graham MacIndoe, of the side of a barn in Hudson Valley, New York dating back to the 18th century, bought by the guitarist Aaron Dessner and rebuilt as the album's recording studio. MacIndoe also took numerous photographs of the band during recording sessions for the album inserts.^[5][6] Andrea Trabucco-Campos and Elaynna Blaser-Gould, with partner Luke Hayman, of the British design firm Pentagram, were the art directors for the album's packaging.^[7]


Unusually, Pentagram also created the branding and identity for Sleep Well Beast and the band, including a corporate standards manual. Additionally, they created the marketing campaign to highlight and play on the album's themes of politics, society and propaganda as "a bit of a joke". The album and branding use the Grotesque-based font Maison with a predominantly blue and white-based color palette.^[6] From the cover, the barn was condensed into a pentagon used as the branding's logo, subdivided into two squares and triangles implemented within the design and branding, even in the artwork itself, as an allusion to corporate branding.^[8]


The marketing campaign was executed in several ways. The band's label, 4AD, partnered with the design company Diabolical to create a mural for the album in Shoreditch, London, containing a lyric from "Day I Die".^[9] Four music videos – "The System Only Dreams in Total Darkness", "Guilty Party", "Carin at the Liquor Store" and "Day I Die" – were directed by Casey Reas prior to the album's release, included in video billboard advertisements released in Times Square, London and Copenhagen. Band merchandise included the branding for the album, specifically the pentagon logo.^[8][10]


Elyanna Blaser-Gould, Luke Hayman and Andrew Trabucco-Campos were nominated for Best Recording Package at the 60th Annual Grammy Awards.^[11][12]