Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic Design

were often sections near the record players in appliance stores, comprised
shelf upon shelf of dreary album spines facing outward (they were called
tombstonesin the trade). Steinweiss’s albums not only brightened up the
surroundings, but the imagery also provided focal points for the consumer.
Merchants began to display albums as objects of art, and listeners related
the music to this art. Steinweiss inspired other record companies to use
evocative covers, but until after World War II his were definitely the most
distinctive.
For its formal strength and emotional force the most memorable
was his cover for Songs of Free Menby Paul Robeson—a slave’s chained
hand holding a knife resonated as a symbol of freedom and heroism. Other
European-inspired, though decidedly original, designs included his
constructivist Eddy Duchinalbum and the cubist Le Sacre du Printemps.In
addition to stylistic sampling, Steinweiss used classical typefaces, though he
often complemented (or contrasted) them with a contemporary novelty
face. For the cover for La Bohèmehe used an ornamental circus letter
because it spoke to the frivolous nature of the opera. By the 1950 s, with the
advent of Swiss modernism, which proffered economical design, and the
increased use of photography, Steinweiss’s illustrative work looked dated.
But for a moment in design history his invention pushed packaging
conventions into an entirely new design genre.