Coldplay - Paradise

The cover art is an interesting one, as on a first look it looks like your average run of the mill abstract art but what makes it more appealing is the artists (whose name I can't find anywhere on the internet) use of subliminal messaging and its links with the Mylo Xyloto theme and the abstractness of the name of the album itself.

Overall the cover is quite a simple one, it is an abstract piece that enmeshes different shades of blue with randomly placed bold brush strokes of black, white, magenta, pink, yellow and green (Colors which were put to good use in the 'Every Teardrop is a Waterfall' video). In the bottom right corner the word art appears written in light blue color against a backdrop of whiteness. If one looks closely one can see a barely visible phrase written in a light graphite grey

 The message reads Glowing in the Dark.

The name of the artist and the song is written in translucent soap bubble like fonts (similar to the albums cover), which apparently is the unicycle riding elephant's hand(paw?)writing as its seen on the placards he hold while busking in the video, with a similarly styled butterfly fluttering just above the text. Below the text a crayon art of another butterfly and an Archimedean spiral is portrayed, both are a recurring theme in not only this song and its video but in concerts, wardrobes and official webpage.

 

Official Webpage

On Guy Berryman's sleeve

 My initial opinion, when I started writing this review, of the cover was a negative one, based on the creative streak that the video carried I was thinking that the cover might have been much more than what it is, but as I got deeper into writing it and researching for it I realized that this cover makes an important piece of a jigsaw puzzle built around the theme used  by Coldplay to promote this album. In conclusion, the cover art is a brilliant one in my opinion although it might not be initially patronizing but, like a Van Gogh art piece, it grows on one as one studies it.