Last Week, the Design world lost an important icon and innovator. Alex Steinweiss was the inventor of the modern day album cover. In 1939, at the age of 23, Alex Steinweiss became the first art director of the recently formed Columbia Records. That year he proposed to Columbia to make a change in the presentation and packaging of the 78 rpm record album. Steinweiss recognized an opportunity to use the packaging in more creative ways to reflect the music it contained and to improve sales. The Times, London summed his achievement best, describing Steinweiss as the man who “singlehandedly created the format, design and graphic ‘language’ of the album cover.”

I was first introduced to Mr. Steinweiss and his immense impact on the world of graphic design by his grandson Homer, a close friend, who just so happens to be one of the most talented drummers in the world today (you can hear some of his work here and here).

During Steinweiss’ long and fruitful career of designing upwards of 850 album covers, he developed a unique signature style that used geometric patterns, folk art symbolism, and a curly hand-drawn lettering (that became copyrighted as Steinweiss Scrawl). All of his covers were done by hand, without the aid of any computers. At a recent exhibit of his album covers in 2010, when questioned on the topic of computers, he barked, “Computers! That’s why everything today looks so crappy!”. I tip my hat off to you Alex.

Alex Steinweiss and his art holds a special place in my heart, not only because his grandson is a dear friend of mine, but more so  because The Bear Cave crew first cut our teeth in the art department at Atlantic Records, and if it weren’t for pioneers like him, Mindy and I might have never met and founded our company.

Below are some of my favorites.

Read more about Alex here