Saturday, February 6, 2010

Albums by Design

It is amazing what has been done on the 12 by 12 space that is the record album cover. Photography, drawing, painting, typography, all of these and more. The cardboard album cover as we know it today and the art on it was first created in 1938 by Alex Steinweiss. Columbia Records hired him as art director when he was 23, and he came up with what we all know as the album jacket, cover, etc...
I always search for records, and typically find them for 50 cents. Sometimes I will buy a record simply because I love the art on the cover. And that is the case with these albums. They grabbed me with their simple style, use of color, and they just the pop off the album jacket.
All (four) of these records were bought at different times, in different stores and maybe even different years (see them all on my Flickr set). Recently I was trying to find the right albums to hang on the wall. Then I noticed that some of my favorites were all designed by Sam Suliman. I can find very little information about him, but seems he designed some book jackets and titles for films as well as album covers. If anyone knows more please comment.

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