Victor Atkins won the 1969 Illustrator Award from the Society of Illustrators specifically for his striking, colorful work on the Miles in the Sky LP cover.

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• The Ultimate "Transition" Visual: Writers like Phil Freeman for Stereogum celebrate the artwork as a brilliant contextual tool. They note that the psychedelic collage perfectly matches the historic moment Miles Davis plugged in electric instruments for the first time. It cracked open the door to his electric era, and the art gave listeners the exact visual cue they needed.
   

• Breaking the "Moody Portrait" Mold: Design historians appreciate it because it shattered Columbia Records' long-standing formula for Miles Davis. Before 1968, almost every single one of his albums featured a moody, close-up, dark photograph of Miles holding his trumpet. This bright, shattered, abstract sky announced to the world that he was no longer bound by traditional jazz aesthetics. [1]

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