The album's cover art was created by Justin Furstenfeld and Brad Bond and depicts four white roses symbolizing the four members of the band who were principally involved in its recording. The fifth member, the guitarist C.B. Hudson, had left the band in 2010, returned after Julian Mandrake left the band, and joined the band to tour the album. According to Furstenfeld, "Sway" represented the band's current outlook on life, and he wanted to keep the artwork simple to represent a simplification of life. The word "Sway" is also symbolic of the four band members, as the word has four letters. Keeping with the simplification theme, the band wanted to give the album a short one-word title, and "Sway" also fitted because listening to the music made them want to dance. At one point, the album was to be titled "Hard Candy", but that was rejected after Furstenfeld's wife told him that Madonna and Counting Crows had already released albums with that title. "Debris" was also considered as a title, but was dismissed following the 2013 Moore tornado. "Debris" was used for the title of the acoustic EP which accompanied the album.