In 1976, when Pentagram’s Paula Scher was in her 20’s, she worked as East Coast Art Director for CBS Records, where she designed album covers for jazz and pop recording artists.

One of the groups signed to the label that year was Lake, a German-British band who played rock and roll. Scher asked the band what lake their name referred to and they told her there were lots of lakes in northern Germany.

A photo of a lake did not seem to be especially interesting on a rock and roll cover where, in the US, no one had yet heard of the band. She thought that the word “Lake” would be more surprising or witty if the cover image were some form of flood.

James McMullan is one of the world’s best watercolor artists and Scher commissioned him to “paint a flood.” He painted a cat watching an overflowing sink. The painting was in a circle positioned on a background of blue water. The album was a hit and so was the cover, which won some design and illustration awards.

Three other covers followed. Lake produced nearly one album per year from 1976 to 1980. All of the covers had the same motif and all were painted by James McMullan. 

The fourth one opened up into a gatefold and had a large horizontal painting on the inside. Here the “flood” on the cover happened in a kitchen where the cook had spilled hot water that dripped on top of a dog. The interior spread showed the dog getting even by shaking off the liquid onto his owner. It was called “Ouch!” and was released after a shakeup in the band.

With the lineup change Scher was never asked to design another cover. She left CBS Records in 1982 to start her own business. In 1991 she was invited to join Pentagram, where she has been a partner ever since.

In 2025 Scher got a call from the manager of Lake asking if she could design another Lake cover. The original members wanted to start over with a new album, titled “Four.”

Fortunately, James McMullan is still alive, still working and still making art that is as good as it was 50 years ago.

He knew the cover had to have an animal and he picked the frog. The cover was completed and the album was released in Germany in June 2026.

Lake’s manager reached out with an update: “We entered the official album charts at #49 (the German equivalent of your Billboard charts) which is not too bad for a comeback after all those years!”