I missed this show featuring Josef Albers’ designs for the covers of the Command Records.
This label’s releases are described as…
“…the most unusual record you have ever put on your turntable. It is a unique mixture of entertainment, excitement, beauty and practicality.” — Persuasive Percussion (1959) liner notes
My kind of music.
More from the gallery overview:
Command Records was founded in 1959 by Enoch Light (1905-1978), a classical violinist, bandleader, and sound recording engineer. Light went to extraordinary technical lengths, and often great expense, to create recordings of the absolute highest quality possible that took full advantage of new technical capabilities of home audio equipment in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Light specifically perfected stereo effects that bounced sounds between the right and left channel speakers, which was called a “ping-pong effect”.
On each album sleeve, Light would include lengthy technical descriptions about each song, the musicians, the depth and breadth of the sounds, and how they were recorded. In order to fit his descriptions, he doubled the size of a standard album sleeve and enabled it to fold open like a book, thereby inventing the gatefold-packaging format. The gatefold sleeve became highly popular in following decades.
Luckily there’s some great images on the gallery site. Josef Albers was a graphic artist but his massive influence on the profession was through his educational programs, such as his excellent color theory book, Interaction of Color.
