# Clip Art Covers > Clip Art Covers is a 2011 image-parody meme where creators recreate album covers and video game box art using only clip art graphics and Comic Sans font. Clip Art Covers is an image editing meme where people recreate iconic album covers, video game box art, and DVD artwork using nothing but clip art graphics and the Comic Sans font. The trend started with a dedicated Tumblr blog in December 2011 and spread to forums like Facepunch and NeoGAF by 2013, where it picked up significant traction in the gaming community. The humor comes from the obvious gap between polished professional artwork and its deliberately crude clip art recreation. ## Origin On December 13, 2011, someone launched the "Clip Art Covers" blog on Tumblr, dedicated entirely to music albums recreated with clip art[3]. The very first post was a clip art version of Nirvana's *Nevermind*, the landmark 1991 grunge album whose original cover features an underwater photograph of a baby reaching for a dollar bill on a fishhook[4]. Over the next two years, the blog churned out more than 365 examples covering albums across genres[3]. The Tumblr blog cultivated a small but dedicated following. One post featuring a clip art ouija board drew a comment about Comic Sans being "worse than a demon," which the blog operator highlighted as exactly the kind of reaction that made the project worth doing[1]. - **Platform:** Tumblr - **Creator:** Unknown (anonymous Tumblr blog operator) - **Date:** 2011 ## Overview Clip Art Covers follow a simple formula: take a well-known piece of cover art and rebuild it from scratch using only stock clip art images, basic graphics tools like MS Paint, and the Comic Sans typeface[3]. The results are intentionally terrible looking, but the fun is in how closely the creator manages to match the original composition with such limited tools. A Nirvana album cover's swimming baby gets replaced with a generic clip art infant. A first-person shooter's brooding protagonist gets swapped for a stick figure holding a pixelated gun. The worse it looks, the better it works[2]. The meme spans multiple media categories. While it started with music album art, it quickly grew to include video game box art, movie posters, and DVD covers[3]. The Comic Sans font is a non-negotiable ingredient. Part of the joke is that Comic Sans is already considered the most reviled typeface in design circles, and slapping it onto a recreation of serious artwork makes the whole thing feel even more absurd[1]. ## How It Spread The concept jumped from Tumblr to forums on February 16, 2012, when Facepunch Forums member Robbl created a thread asking users to submit their own clip art recreations of covers from films, games, and albums[3]. Robbl kicked things off with a clip art version of the BioShock cover. The thread used clip art, stock photos, and Comic Sans as the required ingredients[3]. The real breakout happened in April 2013. On April 21, the Tumblr blog Aurorashaman posted a clip art recreation of the Pokémon Blue Game Boy cover that racked up over 19,200 notes in just three days[3]. The next day, April 22, Kotaku published an article spotlighting the trend, noting that it had "started with album covers" but had "jumped pretty swiftly to video games" across Tumblr and various forums[2]. Kotaku pointed readers toward the Tumblr tag and an active NeoGAF thread as the best places to find examples[2]. On April 23, NeoGAF member sixteen-bit started a dedicated thread for clip art video game covers that pulled in more than 380 responses within its first 24 hours[3]. That same day, Redditor Celeste1492 posted a clip art Mass Effect 2 cover to the r/MassEffect subreddit, where it picked up over 580 upvotes and 35 comments[3]. ## How to Use Making a Clip Art Cover is straightforward: 1. **Pick a famous cover** — album artwork, video game box art, or a movie poster that people will instantly recognize. 2. **Find clip art equivalents** — search for stock clip art images that roughly match the elements in the original. A soldier becomes a stick figure with a gun. An ocean becomes a blue rectangle with a wave. 3. **Rebuild the composition** — arrange the clip art pieces to mirror the original layout as closely as possible. The closer you match the positioning, the funnier the contrast. 4. **Add text in Comic Sans** — replace all title text and logos with Comic Sans. This is the signature detail that ties the whole format together. 5. **Keep it deliberately crude** — the charm is in the effort-to-quality ratio. People appreciate when you clearly tried hard to match the original while being limited to terrible tools. ## Cultural Impact Kotaku's coverage in April 2013 brought the trend to a mainstream gaming audience[2]. The format tapped into a broader internet fascination with Comic Sans as a cultural punching bag and with clip art as a relic of early computing aesthetics. The meme also reflected the growing popularity of "bad on purpose" creative exercises online, where the constraint of using terrible tools to recreate something professional became its own art form. The Tumblr blog's sustained output of 365+ posts over two years gave the meme a stable home base that kept it alive longer than most one-off image fads[3]. The format's jump from music to gaming to film showed how adaptable the core concept was. ## Fun Facts - The original Tumblr blog posted its first clip art cover of Nirvana's *Nevermind*, one of the best-selling albums of all time with over 30 million copies sold worldwide[4]. - The NeoGAF thread got 380+ responses in a single day, making it one of the faster-growing creative threads on the forum at the time[3]. - Comic Sans wasn't just a stylistic choice for laughs. The font is widely considered one of the most disliked typefaces among designers, so pairing it with clip art doubles down on the "design nightmare" aesthetic[1]. - The Pokémon Blue clip art cover was the single most viral individual post from the trend, hitting 19,200 Tumblr notes in three days[3]. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is Clip Art Covers? Clip Art Covers is an internet meme where people recreate iconic cover artwork from albums, video games, and movies using only clip art images and the Comic Sans font[3]. ### Where did Clip Art Covers come from? The trend started on December 13, 2011, when an anonymous creator launched a dedicated Tumblr blog for clip art album cover recreations[3]. ### What does Clip Art Covers mean? The meme is a comedy exercise in deliberate downgrading. The humor comes from seeing professional, polished artwork faithfully rebuilt with the cheapest possible digital tools[2]. ### How do you use Clip Art Covers? Pick a recognizable cover, find clip art substitutes for each visual element, arrange them to match the original composition, and add all text in Comic Sans[3]. ### Is Clip Art Covers still popular? The trend peaked in April 2013 and the original Tumblr blog has been inactive for years. The format is largely dead as an active trend, though old examples still circulate[2]. ### What was the first Clip Art Cover? The first post on the original Tumblr blog was a clip art recreation of Nirvana's *Nevermind* album cover[3]. ### Why is Comic Sans required? Comic Sans is widely mocked as the worst professional font, so using it is part of the joke. One commenter on the original blog called Comic Sans "worse than a demon," which the blog operator cited as exactly why the project existed[1]. ### What was the most popular Clip Art Cover? A clip art version of the Pokémon Blue Game Boy cover posted on Tumblr in April 2013 hit over 19,200 notes in three days, making it the single most viral example[3]. ### Did Clip Art Covers spread beyond albums? Yes. The format expanded to video game box art through Facepunch Forums in 2012 and NeoGAF in 2013, and also covered film and DVD artwork[2]. ## References 1. [Clipart Covers]() 2. [Clipart Covers]() 3. [Fixing Video Game Box Art With...Clip Art And Comic Sans - Kotaku]() 4. [Clip Art Covers - Know Your Meme]() 5. [List of Internet phenomena]() 6. [Nevermind]() --- Source: https://meme.com/memes/clip-art-covers Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library