One big inspiration to me is music and the creative direction that bands and artists go through when creating songs and albums.
Music is a big inspiration to me and the artwork of albums and singles as well as the packaging on vinyl records really encapsulates me and gives me various inspiration to create artwork along the same spectrum.
Here are a few examples: 
Photo: Hypebeast
Above is the artwork for The 1975’s 4th Album which went through various design changes but ultimately kept the bands core ideas and symbols.
What I love about the bands creative direction when it comes to their albums is they have many aspects in regards to artwork such as different styles of design for different songs within the record – some will be simple photos of the band with minimal text and some are fully digitally designed.
This is also seen within their live shows, with their stage being full of large screens and blocks which show visual elements of the songs, as seen below;
In addition to The 1975, another artist that inspires me design wise is an American rapper called Nothing, Nowhere who creates rock/punk style music.
His whole style is quite gothic and dark which can be seen in his music videos, artwork for songs as well as physical products such as vinyl records and merchandise (hoodies/t-shirts ect.)
Below is the 2xLP Vinyl he released containing two of his albums, which features a redesigned minimalistic cover for both sides and 2 coloured splatter records for each album.
As you can see, each album has been redesigned to be a solid white colour and be much more minimalist which I think in this case, really stands out and makes it much more appealing in a physical format. In addition, the records have been designed to be much more unique which is something I would take into account if I was going through that process.
There are many more artists I could point out, but these two I’m a big fan of even though they are polar opposites in regards to design and genre in most cases. However they both give me many ideas for my own projects which I think is all that matters.
