It Takes A Genius To Scrawl

There is plenty that goes along with being the first (and consequently the last). The essence of first experiences are encapsulated and decorated with vivid colors, captions, and even smells in our imaginations, and are placed in a marked space in time. 

Alex Steinweiss, conceiver of the first album cover, materialized his perceptions at the height of jazz. Before then, paperbag covers with less gusto contained the souls of many musician's work like Louis Armstrong and Earl Hines. This new way to package supplemented (out the gazoo) to the sales of Columbia Records, where he worked as sole designer and illustrator for several years during The Golden Age of Jazz. Still, this only reveals part of his contribution. His extremely imaginative way to display typography (a font was named after his infamous signature the "Steinweiss scrawl"), along side bold illustrations and vivid colors breath yet another dimension which helped further define the experience to come when needle grazed record and situated itself.

The meaning behind X&Y

It was shuttle on full throttle when I had asked friends over for a bite and chat to bring over their favorite cd, and they with an air of mien, declared they had no cds but opt out for easy weezy i-pod or 2000 track memeory stick, which they were happy to bring over (flashback to 8 tracks similar fate). Clearly music was the primary objective of my guests (put aside pizza and wine) and not the booklet containing the symbolical or at times esoteric graphics, photos, typography or color better left on living room walls.

Decoding Coldplay's X&Y is an article on the current demise of significant album covers, but how the nervy ones left still manage to reach some of us today. Tappin and Gofton's modernist cover depicts the future in the form of binary data and simultaneously reaches backwards to reveal how telegraphists used to communicate similarly through strings of code. Semiotics in X&Y are at play and describe the actual state of an industry and those effected. The result isn't static for album covers however, and those printing presses have rolled on to the computer screens. No doubt just how Chicago on 8 track jogs memories playing over and over the buzz of a fan on a hot Texas night lives on in our (or at least my) collective experience, digital or not.

Read on: Decoding Coldplay's X&Y: Observatory: Design Observer

Far-Reaching (Music Websites)

Love Orba Squara's most fitting album title "The Trouble with Flying". Love it because I don't like flying, but I love traveling. How many things can go wrong when flying? I can think of plenty (hijacking and volcano eruptions being two). What are the odds? Call me an optimist--anything can happen, but in the meantime I'm noting where the nearest emergency exit is.

And so, this title touches chords that leave me at once believing there are others like me who prefer to take it slow. Orba Squara in fact points out the average, grotesque, shoddy and beautiful things we miss along the way when flying. They along with Random Collective designer José Ricardo Cabral Cabaco created a lateral scrolling website that takes you on their American tour (10 days in 10 different cities) to capture those fleeting moments through archiving, journaling, photographing and sketching. It's lengthy (as a short film), but in my opinion something we should all do at least once in our lifetime--if you can't get a campervan, this is runner-up.

A highlight, day 4 if I remember right, was Austin, Texas--(love this place like a Palermitano loves Palermo). Funny because, the band had never been before, but like many of us has heard of it as the coolest, smartest, funkiest, hands down where you want to be if you're not somewhere else. Their impressions were so poignant, and reminded me of how easy it is to be in love when there's space in between. Their music rolls in synch as they truck on to the next burg (Las Cruces New Mexico, Flagstaff Arizona, Las Vegas Nevada, Eureka California... final destination somewhere in Oregon) capturing parts of America, that are at once romantic and forgotten.

Far-reaching music website design: orbasquara.com