Cover Art
The cover art for No Line on the Horizon is a photograph of Lake Constance, taken by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto; titled Boden Sea, it is one of 200 pictures in his Seascapes collection. The image was the inspiration for Bono's lyrics on the track "No Line on the Horizon". Sugimoto and U2 struck a deal in which the band could use the photograph as the cover art and Sugimoto could use "No Line on the Horizon" in his future projects; Sugimoto's only stipulation was that no text could be placed on top of the image. Original releases had an equals sign superimposed in the middle of the album cover, but later releases featured only the image.
Boden Sea had previously been used by Richard Chartier and Taylor Deupree for their 2006 album Specification.Fifteen. The album covers are similar, though No Line on the Horizon has a white border around the image, and Specification.Fifteen has a box at the top of the cover with the names of the artists and the album. Deupree called U2's cover "nearly an exact rip-off" and stated that for the band to obtain the rights to the image it was "simply a phone call and a check." Sugimoto refuted both of these claims, calling the use of the same photograph a coincidence and stating that no money was involved in the deal with U2.
Read more about this topic: No Line On The Horizon, Release
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