Alex Steinweiss was the art director for Columbia Records during the 1940s. He revolutionized the way records were packaged and marketed. His genre-defining work in the visual expression of music transformed both the design and the music industries.
Steinweiss won a scholarship to Parsons School of Design in 1934, became an assistant to the newly arrived Austrian designer Joseph Binder in 1937 and, in 1939, at the age of 23, he became the first art director of the recently formed Columbia Records.
At this time, 78-r.p.m. shellac-coated records were packaged as sets of three or four records in separate sleeves bound between plain pasteboard covers. They were stamped only with the title of the work and the name of the recording artist and displayed on shelves with just the spines showing. Steinweiss recognized an opportunity to use the packaging in more creative ways to reflect the music it contained and to improve sales. He went on to design upward of 850 album covers.
His first cover was for a 1939 collection of songs by Rodgers and Hart. A theater marquee with the composers’ names spelled out in lights pivots on the central red axis of the encased record. He went on to design and develop a unique signature style that used original typography, geometric patterns and folk art symbolism.
Steinweiss’s covers are still regarded as icons of the genre. He passed away on July 17, 2011.
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