Album Design for Out of the Blue by Electric Light Orchestra

Electric Light Orchestra is a British rock group formed in 1970 by front man Jeff Lynne. Their seventh studio album Out of the Blue  (1977) is designed by English designer John Kosh with art from Japanese illustrator Shusei Nagaoka

In the top right corner a small copy of the band's name sits atop the albums title in a sans-serif typeface. while a colorful jukebox inspired space station stretches across the square being docked by a spaceship adorned with the same structure. The space station's design is referential to the one placed center in ELO's previous album A New World Record (1976, Also by Kosh and Nagaoka) and would go on to become symbolic of the band throughout their over 50 year career.

John Kosh has been an active graphic designer since the late 1960s. For the past 30 years  he's ran multiple design studios providing commercial clientele book covers, movie art, posters and more. However before that, Kosh was known for his album designers of the late 60s and 70s. During this period, while working as the creative director for The Beatles' record label Apple Records, he produced multiple iconic album covers such as Abbey Road (The Beatles, 1969) and The Who's Who's Next (1971). 

Shusei Nagaoka (長岡秀星, 1936-2015) was a Japanese illustrator born in Nagasaki Japan. In the late 50s he dropped out of Musashino art university to pursue working as a commercial illustrator. After moving to Hollywood in 1970 he achieved relative success, becoming known for his smooth sci-fi art that frequented album covers of bands like Electric Light Orchestra and Earth Wind and Fire during the late 70s through early 80s. Although he passed away in 2015 at the age of 78 his work has lived on through retrospective exhibitions, and album reprints, including Out of the Blue's near 10 million copies sold. cementing his spaceship design for ELO as an iconic piece of rock music history.