Editing Kid A (section)

== Artwork ==

The ''Kid A'' artwork and packaging was created by Yorke with [[Stanley Donwood]], who has worked with Radiohead since their 1994 EP ''[[My Iron Lung]]''.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radioheads-secret-weapon-20060612|title=Radiohead's Secret Weapon|last=Goodman|first=Elizabeth|date=12 June 2006|magazine=Rolling Stone|access-date=3 March 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303164717/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/radioheads-secret-weapon-20060612|archive-date=3 March 2018|url-status=live}}</ref> Donwood painted on large canvases with knives and sticks, then photographed the paintings and manipulated them with [[Photoshop]].<ref name="ARTS2">{{cite web|date=22 November 2006|title=Arts Diary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/nov/22/radiohead.popandrock|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140926042018/http://www.theguardian.com/music/2006/nov/22/radiohead.popandrock|archive-date=26 September 2014|access-date=24 April 2007|website=The Guardian}}</ref> While working on the artwork, Yorke and Donwood became "obsessed" with the [[Worldwatch Institute]] website, which was full of "scary statistics about ice caps melting, and weather patterns changing"; this inspired them to use an image of a mountain range as the cover art.<ref name="optimist">{{cite news|url = https://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2008/mar/20/thomyorke|title = Thom Yorke: why I'm a climate optimist|date = 23 March 2008|access-date = 26 April 2015|newspaper = Guardian|last = Yorke|first = Thom|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20150518050542/http://www.theguardian.com/environment/blog/2008/mar/20/thomyorke|archive-date = 18 May 2015|df = dmy-all}}</ref> Donwood said he saw the mountains as "some sort of cataclysmic power".<ref>{{cite web|url = https://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/stanley-donwood-on-the-stories-behind-his-radiohead-album-covers|title = Stanley Donwood on the Stories Behind His Radiohead Album Covers|work = [[NME]]|date = 27 September 2013|access-date = 28 September 2013|author = Jones, Lucy|url-status = live|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20130927150613/http://www.nme.com/blogs/nme-blogs/stanley-donwood-on-the-stories-behind-his-radiohead-album-covers|archive-date = 27 September 2013|df = dmy-all}}</ref>

Donwood was inspired by a photograph taken during the [[Kosovo war|Kosovo War]] depicting a square metre of snow full of the "detritus of war", such as military equipment and cigarette stains. He said: "I was upset by it in a way war had never upset me before. It felt like it was happening in my street."<ref name="ARTS2" /> The red swimming pool on the album spine and disc was inspired by the 1988 graphic novel ''[[Brought to Light]]'' by [[Alan Moore]] and [[Bill Sienkiewicz]], in which the number of people killed by [[state terrorism]] is measured in swimming pools filled with blood. Donwood said this image "haunted" him during the recording of the album, calling it "a symbol of looming danger and shattered expectations".<ref>{{cite web|last = Donwood|first = Stanley|title = Bear over a swimming pool|work = Slowly Downward|url = http://shop.slowlydownward.com/Store/DisplayIndividualItem/1/575.html|access-date = 25 April 2007|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20070610203044/http://shop.slowlydownward.com/Store/DisplayIndividualItem/1/575.html|archive-date = 10 June 2007|url-status = dead}}</ref> Yorke and Donwood cited a Paris exhibition of paintings by [[David Hockney]] as another influence.<ref>{{Cite magazine|last=Vozick-Levinson|first=Simon|date=2021-11-03|title='Some sort of future, even if it's a nightmare': Thom Yorke on the visual secrets of ''Kid A'' and ''Amnesiac''|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-pictures/radiohead-kid-a-amnesiac-artwork-1252016/|access-date=2021-11-03|magazine=[[Rolling Stone]]|language=en-US|archive-date=4 November 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211104181353/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-pictures/radiohead-kid-a-amnesiac-artwork-1252016/|url-status=live}}</ref>

Yorke and Donwood made many versions of the album cover, with different pictures and different titles in different typefaces. Unable to pick one, they taped them to cupboards of the studio kitchen and went to bed. According to Donwood, the choice the next day "was obvious".<ref name="Donwood-2019">{{Cite book|last=Donwood|first=Stanley|title=There Will Be No Quiet|publisher=[[Thames & Hudson]]|year=2019|isbn=9781419737244|pages=73–74|author-link=Stanley Donwood}}</ref> In October 2021, Yorke and Donwood curated an exhibition of ''Kid A'' artwork at [[Christie's]] headquarters in London.<ref>{{Cite web|date=2021-09-22|title=Radiohead's Thom Yorke is co-curating a ''Kid A'' artwork exhibition|url=https://www.nme.com/news/music/radioheads-thom-yorke-is-co-curating-a-kid-a-artwork-exhibition-3051877|access-date=2021-10-16|website=[[NME]]|language=en-GB}}</ref>