Bumping this ruthlessly
Let's get the
worst out of the way. It's so little fun focusing on the negative. Album-wise that's easy for me: I really don't like Party Queen's artwork. The photo shoot is not great and the whole typography is too simple (I'm inclined to say lazy). The theme I also just don't care for. It made me avoid the album for ages, though I'm listening to it now and it is actually pretty fun. Single-wise I'm not sure, there's nothing I actively dislike. crossroad is nothing special, I'm not crazy about STEP you / is this LOVE?, some of the earlier singles are a bit underwhelming (vogue, Far away). My dislike usually stems from typography issues combined with mediocre photoshoots, fortunately there aren't too many of those. Oh yeah, (miss)understood CD version is not too great.
Aaaaaaaaaaanyway, on to what's
BEST! Oof, making people choose? That's quite the task!
There's a couple different album covers I really like for various reasons. RAINBOW may be my overall favourite. I love the photo shoot, the typography is excellent (the logo is really great imo), the whole vibe it breathes is just excellent and captures the mood of the album really well. I also love the super glossy paper it is printed on. It feels so proper and fits the artwork to a tee! Others deserve love too: Duty (great photo shoot, captures the vibe of the album really well), Memorial address (captures the vibe, great photo shoot, cool typography on the logo), NEXT LEVEL (great art direction overall, so colourful, great logo!), A BALLADS, A BEST; and the ayu-mi-x albums have some amazing ones too: I'm partial to the whole set of ayumi hamasaki RMX WORKS from SUPER EUROBEAT presents ayu-ro mix 3, ayumi hamasaki RMX WORKS from Cyber TRANCE presents ayu TRANCE 3 and ayumi hamasaki RMX WORKS from ayu-mi-x 5 non stop mega mix (the first two especially, but they have a great overall look and vibe and cool logo design), for instance.
There's some great single designs too: HEAVEN, CAROLS, Voyage, H, Free & Easy, M, SURREAL and Fly high are all GREAT. My absolute favourites though are glitter/fated (YES, it's AMAZING!), No way to say and &.