Record Covers

One of the things that got me into Design along with a few others, was the design of the record covers i used to collect.
Factory, Warp Records and 4AD to name a few.

It was while thinking about some of these designs that i remembered one of the last record labels to push the boundries of design was MoWax records.
Their sleeves were designed by Ben Drury.

On the site it states that James Lavelle the record label boss encouraged him to source new materials, use special printing processes, develop new packaging solutions and to experiment across the range of formats.
If you look through history, it's often a similar story in design and music, with 2 creative forces encouraging and responding to each other that produces the celebrated creative work.

With the demise of Vinyl and the attention paid to the artwork, i think less people are going descover design through this medium.
The large labels now prefer images of the artist on the front as this sells the artist and iTunes giving you a tiny jpeg, there is less inclination to collect them as a piece of design.

I remember atending a talk a few years back which was about the demise of record cover artwork and the popularity of mp3's.
Ben Drury was one of the speakers at the event. I think he claimed that he wasn't working in design anymore and that this area of design was dead and not worth it.

I wish he could have said that when one of his designs convinced me to part with £60 for one album in 2 parts!

Two labels which seem to be investing in design are
Lex Records and Kindred Spirits
The music is woth checking out as well.