Beginning in the 1920s, collections of empty sleeves with a plain paper or leather cover, were sold as record albums that customers could use to store their records. These empty albums were sold in both 10" and 12" sizes. The covers of these bound books were wider and taller than the records inside, allowing the record album to be placed on a shelf upright, which protected them.
Bob Dylan - 1960's
In 1938, Columbia Records hired Alex Steinweiss as its first art director. He invented the concept of album covers and cover art, replacing plain covers used before. After his initial efforts at Columbia, other record companies followed his lead. By the late 1940s, record albums for all the major companies featured their own colorful paper covers in both 10-inch and 12-inch sizes. Some featured reproductions of classic art while others utilized original designs.
The cover became an important part of the culture of music at the time. Under the influence of designers like Bob Cato who at various stages in his long music career was vice president of creative services at both Columbia Records and United Artis, album covers became renowned for being a marketing tool and an expression of artistic intent.
With the increasing popularity of digital music downloading service and the inflating cost of conducting business, the purpose and prevalence of the album cover is evolving. While the music industry tries to keep up with technological and cultural shifts, the role that packaging will play in consumer music sales in the near future is uncertain, its role is changing, and digital forms of packaging will continue to surface, which, to some degree take the place of physical packaging. Both MP3 and WMA music files are able to contain embedded digital album artworks in jpeg format. As of 2008 physical music products, with a physical "album cover", continue to outsell digital downloads.
Ryan Kearney
No comments:
Post a Comment