The gold text was an early part of the design that carried through to the final design stages. In the early stages of the design work, the album featured a green border around three sides of a black and white image. IMAGE: Early Cover of The Joshua Tree, Design by Steve AverillĪverill started design work on The Joshua Tree before the album had a name. The name would become Works Associates in 1988, and later the more familiar Four5One, and is currently Amp Visual. While working under that name, Averill was responsible for a number of covers, including Under a Blood Red Sky through to The Joshua Tree, several Virgin Prunes releases, singles by Gavin Friday and Cactus World News, among others. was the name of the design firm that Steve Averill had started in 1983, and he used this name up until the release of The Joshua Tree. The liner notes for the original album list that photography was by Anton Corbijn, design and layout by Steve Averill and artwork by The Creative Dept., Ltd. Among the covers we looked at were the three different photographs used on the cover of The Joshua Tree, but there is much more to the story than just those three photos. Last year we took a look at U2’s alternate covers. We are going to look back at this album and the images that have graced the front of the album, from early prototype designs to the most recently announced additions for the 30th anniversary, due to be released in June.