Alex Steinweiss's Accomplishments

“The way records were sold was completely ridiculous. The covers were brown, tan or green paper; they were not in the least bit attractive, and lacked any form of sales appeal” – these are the words of Alex Steinweiss, the creator of album artwork, way back in 1939. Before Steinweiss’ revolutionary creation, there was quite simply no such thing as an album cover; vinyl recordings were available to buy in the back of appliance stores, where one would enquire for the particular title of a recording and were it in stock, would receive it in brown paper packaging, which was commonplace for all records at the time – possibly reflecting the fact that sales of records at this time in history were neither impressive or significant, instantly suggesting
But, Depression aside, Columbia records increased its record sales eightfold in a mere three months, proving that the reason which undoubtedly kicked the sale of the Album Artwork off is indisputably down to the introduction of album artwork, for which we have the young and creative mind of Alex Steinweiss to thank.

Alex Steinweiss, born in Brooklyn on March 24th 1917, attended Abraham Lincoln High School in 1930, where he quickly became one of the favoured students amongst the art school; Leon Friend, the chairman of the art department formed a group of talented artists known as the ‘art squad’ , where Steinweiss shone as both an illustrator and a graphic designer. After being featured in the fashionable PM magazine at only seventeen, Steinweiss won a scholarship to Parsons School of Design, and after graduating in 1937, was hired as an understudy to the Austrian poster designer, Joseph Binder. Steinweiss learnt a lot from Binder, and was particularly influenced by his ability to flatten colour
In one of his most iconic albums, ‘Elvis Presley’ (1956) which was really the moment when Presley fully emerged onto the big stage; the artwork fully shows the intentions that Rock’n’Roll had – a black and white shot of Presley embodying unbridled energy of the youth that fits the image at a slightly off-centred angle, juxtaposing the seated drummer ‘DJ Fontana’, giving the impression Presley couldn’t be confined on the vinyl and that he is literally throwing himself at the buyer; an act of genius by Colonel Tom Parker of RCA, who hired out the Robertson & Fresh commercial studio to shoot the cover. The prominent green and red text stands out in front of the black and white image, suggesting that this is the moment Presley really arrives into the music industry. The album cover portrays both the energy and passion that Presley achieved in his revolutionary music. The impact this cover had is undisputed; The Clash used the exact composition and scenario in their 1979 album ‘London Calling’. Following Presley in the same year I wish to jump to the genre of ‘Jazz’ – Quincy Jones’ ‘This is how I feel about jazz’ (1956) takes a different approach in the chosen album cover. During a time where jazz presented a very ‘upper-class’ type of music and that the viewer was demanded to be as enigmatic as the artist appeared, Quincy Jones took a much more common