Album art can be boring.

The old adage “don’t judge a book by its cover” hits close to home for graphic designer Denise Burt. Her job is making cover art for contemporary classical music albums. When she started in 2003 for Dacapo Records in Denmark, she says, she didn’t know much about classical music. But she did know the old-fashioned designs like this one weren’t working.

She began talking to composers about their work — and getting as experimental as the music.

More than a decade later, Burt has designed nearly 300 album covers for Dacapo and other labels. We asked her to explain eight of them. Here they are, followed by the music that inspired them.