Album artwork before photography

When record companies (with a little help from Alex Steinweiss) first began to see the potential role of album covers beyond simple packaging, advertisements were nearly always illustrated and often still in black and white. Billboards, movie posters, magazine ads and packaging of household products all featured the work of graphic designers, illustrators and artists.

As photographic printing techniques became more readily available and affordable, photography took over as the media of choice for record companies looking to promote their product to the music loving public. As art directors and copywriters began to work directly with photographers, the graphic artist was slowly pushed aside. The image of the recording artist became the focus and for the vast majority of covers the unique imagination of the illustrator, and their stylish cover designs, were history. For a while.

Of course in design as in fine art, photography began to weave its own magic; the photo design studio Hipgnosis is the prime example of this medium reaching new potential under the guidance of great artistic talent. Illustration, too, has regained a place in album cover art of today - just look at the work by Katie Scott for Bombay Bicycle Club or Tinhead's work for Foals to see that the bands with an eye for the extra special will often find it in the graphic arts and eschew the safe but often banal photographic portrait. 

The origins of album artwork from the great talents of Alex Steinweiss, Jim Flora, Neil Fujita provide us with a snapshot of a time when illustration was the only way, and the fullness of creative talent was given to the LP sleeve designs at record labels such as Columbia. In the course of publishing limited edition prints of some of this work, and with the help of the research already done by the wonderful folk at Birka Jazz, we'll be compiling a series blog posts that shine a long overdue spotlight on some of the artists and individual works that came out of this 'pioneer' era.

Let us know if you have any details to add!

Columbia Records: new jazz prints from the home of cool

Hypergallery is embarking on a project, in collaboration with Sony Music, to rescue what we hope will be a huge collection of album cover art from the Columbia archives and make this work available as limited edition prints. The music may be available in other formats but the original artworks, along with their designers, must not be forgotten. We hope that by working with Sony to seek out the original designs and make them available in this way, we are helping to preserve this important visual archive for generations to come.

Columbia, the oldest brand name in pre-recorded music, was also pioneer in the field of album cover design, from the first big era of advertising through to the big era of the 12” vinyl that saw Led Zeppelin conquer the world. It was for Columbia that Alex Steinweiss created the first illustrated cover, before which albums were simply sold in plain brown sleeves. Some of the most significant artists ever to design album covers were subsequently employed by Columbia, with many of them leading the way as Artistic Directors for the label including Jim Flora, Neil Fujita and Bob Cato.

Hypergallery has been publishing works of album cover art from this last great era and beyond for a while now, and had built up a small collection of work from the 1950s, largely those published by the archive of the inimitable Jim Flora. We felt it was high time more of the outstanding work from these early days in the field of sleeve design saw the light of day - particularly as many of the LPs themselves have become so rare. We hope you will join us in this endeavor and perhaps begin your own personal collection of hg edition jazz prints!

About the collection

Each of the Hypergallery hg editions Jazz Prints will be published in a limited edition of only 100.

Each print will be giclée printed in archival inks on paper.

Each print will be numbered in pencil and issued with a unique certificate of authenticity.

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The blog has had to take a back seat for a short while but we're back! And due a makeover...

Culture Label

Hypergallery have maintained a tentative presence on Culture Label for a couple of years, and we have been fans since its launch. For those of you that haven't yet heard of them, it is a great place to find gifts and treats of all sorts for your cultured selves, friends and family. Their brilliantly curated suggestions for gifts groupings - so often a pointless list of items that miss the mark - are a really useful and inspiring effort, under such headings as Hipsters and History Lovers. Pick a category that you think fits you and just see how many of their suggestions you want to add to your birthday wish list! The long list of desirables we came up with is testament to them and also to the vast range of wonderful products they have for sale.

So, we are properly loving Culture Label right now and are honoured to be featured as part of a relatively new Culture Label endeavour; Private View is, in their own words, an "expertly curated art and artist-designed products from the world's most iconic artists, designers and cultural brands."

Sir Peter Blake prints from Hypergallery are currently available on a special Private View exclusive with Culture Label and there will be more offers to come exclusively available to Private View members. We think it's a lovely idea well executed; where many 'special offers' and suggested item lists can leave you cold, Culture Label have taken the time to ensure that you warm to them as much as we have.