Alexander Steinweiss (March 24, 1917 – July 17, 2011) was an American graphic design artist known for inventing album cover art.

Early life

Born on March 24, 1917, in Brooklyn, Alex Steinweiss was the son of a women's shoe designer from

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

and a seamstress from

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. His parents had first moved to the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Historically, it w ...

Manhattan Manhattan ( ) is the most densely populated and geographically smallest of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City. Coextensive with New York County, Manhattan is the County statistics of the United States#Smallest, larg ...

and later on, settled in the

Brighton Beach Brighton Beach is a List of Brooklyn neighborhoods, neighborhood in the southern portion of the New York City Borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn, within the greater Coney Island area along the Atlantic Ocean coastline. Brighton Beach ...

area of Brooklyn. Steinweiss said he was destined to be a commercial artist. He studied under Leon Friend at Abraham Lincoln High School, and his classmates marveled that he "could take a brush, dip it in some paint and make letters," he recalled. "So I said to myself, 'If some day I could become a good sign painter, that would be terrific!"' Steinweiss earned a scholarship to the

Parsons School of Design The Parsons School of Design is a private art and design college under The New School located in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. Founded in 1896 after a group of progressive artists broke away from established Manhattan art ...

, and graduated in 1937.

Career

After graduation Steinweiss impressed Lucian Bernhard, the renowned German poster designer, with his portfolio, Bernhard got him a job in his friend Joseph Binder's studio. Steinweiss worked for three years for the Austrian poster designer Joseph Binder, whose flat color and simplified human figures were popular at the time and influenced his own work. In the 1930s recorded music was sold in plain packaging, or record shop advertising 'bags'; sets of discs were also usually issued in plain albums. However, colored artwork had been used on special albums, from World War I. This was separately printed and pasted onto album covers and occasionally inside the albums: for example, HMV's issue of Liza Lehmann's "In a Persian Garden" and operettas by Edward German and Gilbert & Sullivan were all available by 1918 in such decorated albums. In 1938, Alex Steinweiss was the first

art director Art director is a title for a variety of similar job functions in theater, advertising, marketing, publishing, fashion, live-action and animated film and television, the Internet, and video games. It is the charge of a sole art director to supe ...

for

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

, where he introduced a wider application of

album cover An album cover (also referred to as album art) is the front packaging art of a commercially released album, studio album or other audio recordings. The term can refer to: * the printed paperboard covers typically used to package: ** sets of a ...

s and

cover art Cover art is a type of artwork presented as an illustration or photograph on the outside of a published product, such as a book (often on a dust jacket), magazine, newspaper ( tabloid), comic book, video game ( box art), music album ( album ar ...

. "They were so drab, so unattractive," said Steinweiss, "I convinced the executives to let me design a few." During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

, Alex Steinweiss served as

Columbia Records Columbia Records is an American reco ...

' advertising manager before leaving to take up a role at the Navy's Training and Development Center in New York City. There, he was responsible for creating teaching materials and cautionary posters. Steinweiss continued to do freelance work for Columbia after the war. During a lunch meeting with Columbia, the president of the company, Ted Wallerstein, presented Steinweiss with a new innovation that was being prepared to be unveiled by the company: the long-playing record. Unfortunately, the Kraft paper that was folded to protect the 78 rpm records proved to be too heavy. The Kraft paper left marks on the vinyls microgroove of the 33 1/3 rpm LPs when they were stacked. Steinweiss later went on to develop what is now known as a record jacket. The first illustrated album cover for 78 rpm records was created by Alex Steinweiss in 1938, while he also developed the paperboard container for 33 1/3 LPs in 1953, which went on to become the industry norm for packaging for more than three decades. Alex Steinweiss was involved in creating album cover designs from 1938 until his semi-retirement in 1973, where he shifted his focus towards painting. Throughout his career, he designed around 2500 covers, his career can be divided into five different periods: The first period, from 1938 to around 1945, Steinweiss designed all the covers for Columbia, where he developed the complete visual "language" for album design. In the second period, from 1945 to approximately 1950, Steinweiss was no longer the exclusive designer for Columbia, and he started to work with other companies. This period is occasionally referred to as the "First Golden Age" of the album cover. The Steinweiss Scrawl, which is now recognized as Alex Steinweiss's signature font, made its initial appearance around 1947. Steinweiss can also take credit for the Grecian column design Columbia used in 1948 on the first LP envelopes. The design was borrowed from the earlier 78 rpm album cover, MM577, the Mendelssohn violin concerto played by Nathan Milstein. This performance was chosen by Columbia to be the first 12-inch LP, ML4001. In approximately 1950, Steinweiss designed the covers and record labels for Remington and established a relationship spanning over 20 years with both

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, record label * Decca Gold, classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, musical theater record label * Decca Studios, recording facility in West ...

and

London Records London Recordings (or London Records and London Music Stream) is a British record label that marketed records in the United States, Canada, and Latin America for Decca Records from 1947 to 1980 before becoming semi-independent. The London nam ...

. During this period, he primarily used drawing as his preferred design technique for clients such as Columbia,

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

, Remington, Decca and London. This marked his third design period, in which he employed drawing, lettering, and layout to create brilliant designs, though perhaps not as memorable as his late 1940s work. It was during this period that he collaborated with

Margaret Bourke-White Margaret Bourke-White (; June 14, 1904 – August 27, 1971) was an American documentary photography, documentary photographer and photojournalist. She was known as an architectural and commercial photographer for the first half of her career, ...

on a memorable series of covers for Columbia. From the mid-1950s onwards, Steinweiss incorporated photography into his work. Steinweiss's photographic covers are remarkably distinctive. He utilized strange garish colors, odd lighting, and numerous visual puns and reference points. He continued to work for Decca and London, and did the entire series of covers (and the logo and label) for the startup

Everest Mount Everest (), known locally as Sagarmatha in Nepal and Qomolangma in Tibet, is Earth's highest mountain above sea level. It lies in the Mahalangur Himal sub-range of the Himalayas and marks part of the China–Nepal border at its ...

label from 1958 until about 1960. This was his fourth period, characterized by photography but continuing to use the entire range of tools he had developed. Steinweiss' final period of record cover design was from 1960 to roughly 1973, again working for Decca and London. His new developments of the period were in die-cut designs and collage. Steinweiss's cover for the original Broadway cast recording of '' South Pacific'' (1949) has been in almost continuous use ever since for the 78rpm set, the LP, the 45rpm set, various tape formats and the CD. The only other graphic design in America to be used for so many years is the

Coca-Cola Coca-Cola, or Coke, is a cola soft drink manufactured by the Coca-Cola Company. In 2013, Coke products were sold in over 200 countries and territories worldwide, with consumers drinking more than 1.8 billion company beverage servings ...

bottle. In 1942, as the art director for the label, Steinweiss recruited Jim Flora, a talented fine arts graduate from Cincinnati. This recruitment launched Flora's 40+ year career as a commercial artist. In 2001, Steinweiss was featured in Carlo McCormick's gallery show "The LP Show," originating in New York's Exit Art and then in 2002 traveling to the Experience Music Project in

Seattle Seattle ( ) is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Washington and in the Pacific Northwest region of North America. With a population of 780,995 in 2024, it is the 18th-most populous city in the United States. The city is the cou ...

and

The Andy Warhol Museum The Andy Warhol Museum is located on the North Shore (Pittsburgh), North Shore of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It is the largest museum in North America dedicated to a single artist. The museum holds an extensive permanent co ...

Pittsburgh Pittsburgh ( ) is a city in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania#Municipalities, second-most populous city in Pennsylvania (after Philadelphia) and the List of Un ...

.Lafreniere, Steve
"Covers story: Steve Lafreniere on 'The LP Show'"

Artforum ''Artforum'' is an international monthly magazine specializing in contemporary art. The magazine is distinguished from other magazines by its unique 10½ × 10½ inch square format, with each cover often devoted to the work of an artist. Notably ...

, Summer 2002. He was interviewed for a chapter in ''Sound Unbound: Sampling Digital Music and Culture'' (The MIT Press, 2008) edited by Paul D. Miller a.k.a.

DJ Spooky Paul Dennis Miller (born September 6, 1970), known professionally as DJ Spooky, That Subliminal Kid, is an American Electronic music, electronic and experimental hip hop musician whose work is often called by critics "illbient" or "trip hop". ...

Death

Alex Steinweiss died on July 18, 2011, in Sarasota, Florida, as confirmed by his son Leslie. He is survived by his daughter Hazel Steinweiss, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, in addition to his son.

Awards

In 1998, Steinweiss was inducted into the Art Directors Club Hall of Fame. In 2003, CMP Information and the International Recording Media Association created the Alex Awards for Excellence in album cover art, which were named in honor of Alex Steinweiss.

Sources and further reading

* Alex Steinweiss, Jennifer McKnight-Trontz. ''For the Record: The Life and Work of Alex Steinweiss'' , Princeton Architectural Press; 2000. * Eric Kohler, ''In the Groove: Vintage Record Graphics, 1940-1960'' () Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 1999. * Heller, Steven; Pomeroy, Karen, ''Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design'' () Watson-Guptill Pubns, NY, 1997. One chapter on Steinweiss. * Chusid, Irwin
''The Mischievous Art of Jim Flora''
(

Fantagraphics Books Fantagraphics (previously Fantagraphics Books) is an American publisher of alternative comics, classic comic strip anthologies, manga, magazines, graphic novels, and (formerly) the Erotic comics, erotic Eros Comix imprint. They have managed sev ...

, 2004); features an interview with Steinweiss * Heller, Steven, and Reagan, Kevin
''Alex Steinweiss, The Inventor of the Modern Album Cover''
, ,

Taschen Taschen is a luxury art book publisher founded in 1980 by Benedikt Taschen in Cologne, Germany. As of January 2017, Taschen is co-managed by Benedikt Taschen and his eldest daughter, Marlene Taschen. History The company began as Tasch ...

, 2009.

External links