Alex Steinweiss
Alex Steinweiss ( born March 24, 1917 in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, † July 17, 2011 in Sarasota, Florida) was an American graphic designer. He is the inventor of record covers.
Career
Steinweiss made after studying at the Parsons School of Design and in the graphics studio of Joseph Binder, where Steinweiss worked as an assistant from 1937, independent in 1939. Shortly thereafter, he applied to the Columbia label in Bridgeport, in the U.S. state of Connecticut. Shortly after he had his own business, he heard of the place as an art director at the new record company, Columbia Records, which he received. There he had in 1940 the idea of a special design of the hitherto unprinted packaging of vinyl records. For published in February 1940 LP Smash song hits by Rodgers & Hart, he designed a design. The significantly better sales success of records with decorative covers made from this idea quickly an economically important sector of design art.
Until around 1945, Steinweiss was the sole designer of record sleeves with Columbia Records; in later years, the team then enlarged. Steinweiss worked throughout his career to other record labels such as Decca Records, London Records Everest Records. With over a thousand album covers he coined the visual appearance of musical interpretations in jazz, classical and pop.
The first shellac plate, designed a record cover for the Steinweiss, 1940, a recording of the songwriter Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart, Smash Song Hits. Steinweiss went for the photo to the New York Imperial Theatre on 45th Street and persuaded the owner to the emitter panel one hours to set so that his team could the lettering Rodgers and Hart photographed. The photo of the neon sign with the background of a graphical representation of a record was the subject of the first record sleeve.
Another cover that was designed by the design pioneer for Beethoven's 5th Piano Concerto, a prime example of Steinweiss ' ability of music is to give a face with his motives - and as far as his influence on the cover design. On the cover falls on a jet black background A beam of light on a wing is deflected as through a prism and fans out in the colors of the rainbow. More than 30 years later, this motif by the British design studio Hipgnosis was quoted on the cover of Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon by 1973.
A bizarre artifact of his work is the design for an album titled Battle at Thunderblow. The cover shows two buttocks, between them a cloud of steam from intestinal winds. On the record the sounds of a Furzwettbewerbs were heard. Publication should be given away in 1946 in a strictly limited edition of 100 copies as a dealer premium. But the former Columbia head Wallerstein forbade the project before it became public.
In 1972, the revolutionary design decided at the age of 55 years to retire from the business. "One day I was waiting in the reception area of a record company - I in a suit next to me louder long-haired types in fringed leather jackets. Then I realized that I was totally outdated and that it was time to throw in the towel. "The close connection between music and the subject remained Steinweiss nevertheless true. Under the stage name of Piedra Blanca ( the Spanish terms for " stone " and " White " ), he began to paint series of paintings by the masterpieces of famous composers.
On July 17, 2011, he died at his home in Sarasota, Florida, at the age of 94 years.