100 Collection - Vinyl record sleeves

The research from the collection needed to be focused.  One agency which featured the most prominently in my collection 100 was HIPGNOSIS.  So I decided to research who the Graphic Designers were and who they had worked with. 

Hipgnosis was founded by Storm Thorgersen and Aubrey Powell quite by accident in 1968.

There is quite a lot on the Internet on Storm Thorgersen and I also found a book in the library (reference) called For the love of Vinyl.


There is an interview with Aubrey Powell one of the co-founders of Hipgnosis on World News where he discussed their latest book.

I also found a book called One hundred best album covers - the stories behind the sleeves by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell.  This proved a really interesting source as each album not only detailed the Graphic Designer/ Art director but also the inspiration behind the design.  What was becoming apparent from both this research and the research i was doing in parallel for my CTS essay on the 1960's that many of the influential artists and designers can be linked in some way.

For example The Clash Album London calling was designed by Ray Lowry (or rather copied from an Elvis cover).  Ray Lowry had actually designed for the International times and Oz in the 60's.  These are the two counter culture magazines I am reviewing in my CTS essay! 

One idea which was starting to emerge in my mind was doing a Graphic Design/Album cover family tree similar to the Rock family tree documentaries on TV in the 90's.  I was also thinking of the audience.  My husband (the record collector) tells me that he not only buys albums for the music he often will source an album just for the packaging. 

The packaging quality, the card and printing is a joy to hold.  I discovered this whilst taking the album photographs.  If I was to produce a 'product' from this it would have to feel luxurious and also be quirky in some way.  The audience I was starting to envisage would be record collectors and /or graphic designers.  So I also decided to research Vinyl and CD packaging in more depth.  The solution at the moment was not going to be a book as the library is full of boos on album/CD covers.

I found a book called 1000 Music Graphics published by Rockport.The book was written by Clifford Stolze of Stolze Design , USA. His has worked with Sony, EMI, Matador. From this I found some other lines of research CD packaging nets - Digipaks, Q-pack and Luglass box.  Digipaks are definitely worth a closer look in terms of this brief as they are made purely from cardboard.

Some innovative ideas to make cd packaging interactive from 1000 Music graphics include:

I like the bottom left box set which looks like a series of cd covers stacked together

A calendar!

Labels are trying to add value to the non downloadable music experience. The iinformaion seeks to engage the listener in the design process itself.  The fan is provied with a toolkit of stickers and gridded paper to create their own cover.  Upon release in the UL it was denied access to the CD sales charts as it included stickers and a dvd.  It was deemed to have an unfair advantage over oher albums released that week!

I like the top left layered cut out booklet.

In his introduction to the book Clif Stolze concludes perhaps the designers role and responsibilty is to create an 'unfair advantage' by employing innovative ideas that add value to the producthelping it rise above a sea of conventionality.