13 DESIGNERS WHO GAVE MUSIC A FACE

In 1930, there were two ways to consume music, one the radio, second the gramophone. The radio brought music to the homes of the middle class, and the gramophone was preset in most of the upper middle class homes. Music was recorded inside a round vinyl disc, which needed to be placed on the gramophone, which played the music. The vinyl disc was packaged inside a paper cover and sold through record stores. This was the music distribution system, but a young designer noticed that there was a problem with this system, and this gave rise to a revolution in the music industry.

The name of this designer was Alex Steinweiss, and the problem he noticed was that all these vinyl discs were being sold inside plain packaging or at times inside record store advertisement bags. This made the records look dull and unattractive to the eye. In 1938, Steinweiss joined Columbia Records as an art director and there he convinced the executives to let him design few record covers. The executives saw this move as a marketing tool, and agreed to the offer.  Since then no record cover was packed in the same old boring manner.

This packaging is called album cover art, and Steinweiss became the pioneer of this art form. Design now became an integral part of the music, as it gave music a face and the record covers started to communicate to the people. Apart from Steinweiss, many designers have lend their talents to the music industry, here are 13 designers who gave music a face.

REID MILES

Reid Miles, a former Navy officer was responsible for jazz record label Blue Note record covers. Miles was hired by Blue Note in 1955, and went on to design over 500 covers for the label. Miles used his distinct graphic style and photographs from Francis Wolff, and later on used his own photographs. 1967 was the year Blue Note and Miles’s association ended.

JIM FLORA

Handpicked by Alex Steinweiss himself, Flora worked under Steinweiss in Columbia Records. Flora was hired because of his signature illustration style, and in 1943 when Steinweiss left for the Navy, Flora was promoted to the art director post. In 1945, Flora was made advertising manager of the company. In 1950, Flora left the company and went on to pursue a career in commercial art and book cover design.

S. NEIL FUJITA

Born to Japanese immigrant parents, Fujita is the true successor to Steinweiss. Fujita joined Columbia Records in 1954, and was tasked to build a design department. After the departure of Steinweiss in 1943, and Flora’s in 1950, Columbia Records failed to keep up with the cover art of its rival Blue Note records. Fujita designed iconic record covers for the company till his departure in 1957.

JOSEF ALBERS

Albers was a German-American painter, known for his abstract paintings. Albers was brought into the world of visualizing music, when one of his students, Charles E. Murphy, who was the design director at Command Records asked him to design album covers for the company. Albers brought his abstract work onto the record covers, and it suited the nature of the sound. Albers considered himself as an artist and not a designer, thus, he continued his experiments with square and circle, on the record covers. Many of his record covers are persevered in the Museum of Modern Art, New York.

HIPGNOSIS

In 1968, art school students, Storm Thorgerson and Audrey Powell were asked by their fellow classmates to make the cover for their album. The name of the album was A Saucerful of Secrets, and the band was Pink Floyd. Since the release of the album, the lives of everyone involved with the album changed. Thorgerson and Powell went on to form Hipgnosis, a design firm solely dedicated to making album covers for musicians. Hipgnosis’s clients include Led Zepplin, Peter Gabriel, Yes, Black Sabbath and many more. Unlike all the other designers, Hipgnosis didn’t have a fixed fees for their work, they asked their clients to pay them whatever they felt was right.

PETER SAVILLE

January, 1978, a television presenter along with two other individuals started a record label to bring punk rock bands into the limelight. Factory Records was started by Tony Wilson, and in a concert he met a design student named Peter Saville, the meeting resulted in Wilson commissioning Saville the first Factory Records poster. Since then Saville designed iconic album covers for bands such as Joy Division, New Order, Happy Mondays and many more. Saville later on became a partner of Factory Records.

MALCOLM GARRETT

Garrett inspired his fellow classmate, Peter Saville, to design album covers. Since late 1970s, Garrett was producing iconic work for musical acts such as Buzzcocks, Magazine, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, and many more. After he made the iconic single cover art for Buzzcock’s Orgasm Addict, Garrett started his own design company called Assorted iMaGes. In recent years Garrett has co-founded Design Manchester festival, where he also serves as a co-curator.

VAUGHAN OLIVER

Graphic design was not Oliver’s first love. Music was, and that is the reason he came to the world of graphic design. Upon completion of his course, Oliver understood he is not cut out to work for traditional corporate clients, this is the time he met a record producer, who owned a record label called 4AD. This meeting developed into a thirty years long association between the two. Oliver designed covers for all musical acts signed to 4AD, under the company name 23 Envelope, a collaboration between him and photographer Nigel Grierson.

NEVILLE BRODY

In 1980s, when Garrett and Saville were making iconic album covers and posters for the punk rock scene in London, a student was closely studying their work. This student was Neville Brody, his work was influenced by punk culture, Pop Art and Dadaism. His work landed him deals with Fetish Records and Stiff Records, and went on to make record covers for The Bongos, Depeche Mode and many more. Brody also made a name for himself in the publishing industry, with his work with magazines such as The Face, Arena.

CEY ADAMS

A graffiti artist, who studied painting and later turned to graphic design, this is how Adam’s career has shaped up to be. In 1983, Adams did the graffiti lettering for the debut single of Beastie Boys, since then he designed their tour merchandise, billboards, posters, and later on landed him deals with other musicians such as Run DMC, LL Cool J. Adams and Steve Carr co-founded the Drawing Board, Def Jam Recordings in-house design studio, where he brought in the idea of concept art on album cover, and designed covers for Jay Z, DMX, and many more.

STANLEY DONWOOD

Donwood is an English contemporary artist, who is responsible for rock band Radiohead’s album artwork. Donwood creates the artworks along with the band’s frontman Thom Yorke. Donwood and Yorke are art school classmates, and he creates the album art for Yorke’s solo albums and for the band Atoms for Peace. Donwood approaches every album differently and infuses his painting techniques in the cover art.  For the album Kid-A, Donwood created a series of mountain landscapes made with the help of a knife.

ALEX GREY

Grey is an American contemporary artist, known for his psychedelic paintings. It is his paintings that attracted the attention of progressive metal band Tool, and eventually was asked to do their artwork. Prior to Grey, all Tool artwork was done by guitarist Adam Jones. For their album Lateralus, the band used his artwork, and since then Grey has been doing their album artwork, posters, merchandise, and live show design.  Grey has also released a number of books dealing with spiritual awakenings.

STEFAN SAGMEISTER

Sagmeister has designed close to nineteen album covers, and has fetched two Grammys for his work. Sagmeister has designed for The Rolling Stones, Lou Reed, David Byrne, Aerosmith, and many more. What made Sagmeister stand out of his contemporaries was his minimalistic approach to design and innovative packaging. Sagmeister continues to do music design in addition to other work in his New York studio Sagmeister & Walsh Inc.

Music design is now an integral part of the industry, and a tool to effectively market the music.  Music today is not just about listening but being able to visualize it.  Album covers are just a small part of what music design comprises of in today’s times. These were the designers who gave music a face and we hope the next time you listen to music, you would pay attention to the album cover. Cheers.