Secret 7” reveals who’s left their stamp on 2025’s record sleeves

If you aren’t familiar with Secret 7” yet, it really is a record sale like no other. A project that’s produced and sold 5,600 one-of-a-kind records, raising over £700,000 for charity in its nine years running, the initiative puts out an open call for artists, designers and illustrators alike to create sleeve artworks for seven different tracks, each from different musicians every year.

Open to creative newcomers and art and design icons alike, the project results in an incredibly vibrant selection of collectable vinyls that are then put up for auction, with all the proceeds going to charity – each of the seven songs pressed onto 100 limited edition 7” records. So if you are able to put a bid on anything, you are certainly guaranteed to pick up something special, and for a great cause – the only thing is nobody knows who’s made the artwork for each sleeve until all of them are sold.

Re-launched by War Child last year, a charity providing aid, support, and education to children in conflict zones, the project’s headline artists have been pretty highly anticipated after the success of 2024’s show. Revealed today, the artists contributing sleeves for this year’s Secret 7” show are: Turner prize-winning artist Antony Gormley, legendary fashion designer Paul Smith, visual artist and the face of The Cure Robert Smith, acclaimed British-Nigerian multidisciplinary artist and designer Yinka Ilori MBE, multimedia innovator Haroon Mirza, Nigerian multidisciplinary artist Ken Nwadiogbu, sound-inspired painter Andrew Pierre Hart, Seoul-based contemporary painter Yooyun Yang, Radiohead’s longtime collaborator, visual artist Stanley Donwood, graphic designer Anthony Burrill and many more.

Anthony Burrill gave It’s Nice That some clues to his 2025 artwork: “I experimented with over-printing and embraced the chance aspect of the process. I didn’t know how the finished sleeve would look until I’d finished printing and experimenting. I printed on the reverse of the sleeve and pushed the overlaid type even further to create an abstracted version of the front cover design. It’s important to me that the process is part of the outcome and the physicality of the medium re-enforces the message of the work.”

With past contributions touched by some of the world’s most celebrated artists and designers such as Anish Kapoor, Yoko Ono, Peter Blake and Ai Weiwei, past sleeves have been made from all sorts: concrete, felt, lego clay, stitch work, each pushing the format in different directions in response to the different musical artists. This year, contributors have got all creative around seven new tracks: Keane’s Black Rain, Frank Turner’s Be More Kind, The Cure’s Warsong: Troxy Live 2024, Scissor Sisters’ Return to OZ, Gregory Porter’s Merchant of Paradise, Jessie Ware’s Beautiful People and Sophie Ellis Bextor’s Devotion, all in response to the 2025 call out.

Alongside the reveal of the musicians and creatives involved, we can now have a sneak peak at some of the sleeve designs. I’m sure, like us, you’ll be making your best bets on who’s is who’s. All of the records are set to be exhibited at Now Gallery at the Greenwich Peninsula in London from 11 April–1 June, after which they will be sold through an auction on Givergy. Money raised from the 2025 show will support War Child’s vital work providing protection, education and specialist mental health support to children caught in conflict zones around the world.