Peter Blake made the Sgt. Pepper cover.

Peter Blake, with help from his then-wife Jann Haworth. He was a British pop artist, and the Beatles wanted something that felt like a carnival parade.

The cover is a collage of cardboard cutouts—everyone from Marilyn Monroe to Karl Marx. Blake and Haworth spent weeks assembling it. They even had to get permission from every living person depicted (or their estates). That’s why you won’t see someone like Hitler in there—nixed it for taste reasons.

It’s still the gold standard for album art.