In the mid/late eighties we used to listen to a lot of Michael Franks’ 1970’s albums. I fell back in to them, and they’ll stay in rotation this time, for sure.
What I didn’t realize back then, is how nice some of his 70’s cover art is. Pretty sophisticated. Simple image, (for the most part) sans serif type. Almost ahead of his time, but I guess the point was to reflect the timelessness of his music.

Michael Franks (BRUT, 1973)

The Art of Tea, (Reprise, 1976)

Burchfield Nines (Warner Bros., 1978)

One Bad Habit (Warner Bros., 1980)

If you live with someone who just bought two big boxes of After Dark magazines, you learn important things. For instance, I bet you did not know that David Bowie loved the 1974 cover portrait of Toni Basil -by Eric Stephen Jacobs- so much, that he commissioned the photographer to shoot (and airbrush) the cover for Young Americans (1975).
So beautiful.

Not only am I currently obsessing on Paul Weller’s early nineties, post-Style Council solo output (which is 2 decades old—scary!), I’m also re-appreciating his consistently good taste. The music leads to the visuals, so I couldn’t help but notice that everything Weller-related just Looks. So. Good. Even, or perhaps especially, all these years later.
While all sorts of crap was designed in the eighties, and that period revisited the fifties for the most part in a really scary way, Paul Weller worked with art directors and photographers who looked at modernism, and who created some remarkable print. In visuals, as in his music, Weller is one of those artists who have always been lightyears ahead by looking back. I can’t think of any other band using Bodoni on album cover art in that decade.

Above left: The Jam in the 1970’s, above right: The Style Council in the 1980’s

The Guardian may have called Weller and bandmate Mick Talbot “teetotal vegetarian socialists with a weakness for colourful knitwear,” (Is that supposed to be an insult?) but I think it’s safe to say that most fans were, and are, in awe of Weller’s sense of style. When an interviewer for The Telegraph asked him what really defines him, Weller responds “It’s always clothes and records. That’s how shallow I am.” Which is great, because he likes to talk about clothes and records in interviews, but sadly nobody ever asks him about translating all this musical and sartorial taste to graphics. He does take partial design credits on most covers, after all, so it must interest him.

Above: The Jam: Beat Surrender cover art

From an interview in The Independent, where Sir Paul Smith interviews Weller:
PS: you’ve had so much style and been so well-dressed for years, I wonder, where does it come from? From inside you, or was there an uncle who was a whizz-kid dresser?
Paul Weller: It’s always been just part of the culture. Growing up, for most working-class kids, is all about football, music or clothes. You might not have much money, but whatever you have got, you’re going to look good.
PS: That’s how you felt from the start?
PW: As a kid, I remember being knocked out seeing those kids in 1960s bands, the way they dressed. Then the late-Sixties skinhead and suedehead thing; how immaculate everything was.

That portrait on Internationalists just kills me. So smart.

Above right: note the font choice on Shout To The Top!…in the eighties!

Easy does it: The Style Council demonstrating once again that less is more, if you know what you’re doing.

In terms of cover art, the good design started with The Jam (see Beat Surrender cover above), kept going throughout the Style Council (just look at that amazing portrait photo on the cover of Internationalists) , and it certainly didn’t stop when Weller went solo. For Stanley Road (1995) Weller asked British Pop artist Peter Blake to design the cover; amazing.
As I am writing this, there is a one-off Mini Cooper up for auction, decorated with supergraphics by Weller. The Mini, covered in wide bubblegum and chocolate stripes, will raise money for War Child and a local music education charity.

Above: The Peter Blake painting for Stanley Road, above right: Weller on a Peter Blake-designed Vespa

If you never got into the solo albums when they came out, do yourself a favor and get “Paul Weller,” “Wild Wood,” and “Stanley Road.” When nobody was touching mid-seventies rock and folk with a ten-foot pole, Weller nailed it. As always, fifteen years ahead of the curve.

Links:
>Paul Weller’s site
> A 2008 interview in the Telegraph. He talks about clothes and music…of course.
>Sir Paul Smith interviewing Weller for The Independent
>The Observer: Soundtrack of my Life / Paul Weller

Anything Deutsche Grammophon reminds me of growing up, and of having a lot of classical music on vinyl around.
In fashion, any old brand has jumped on the “heritage” bandwagon. From St. James, Clarks, Hunter and Barbour, to Petit Bateau, Pendleton and even LL Bean. The message, ad nauseum, is that what was once a sleepy world of merch for nerds and people who want to be left alone, is now the hippest thing on Earth. Which is sad because it spoils things, and the lameness will eventually seep into, and spoil, other categories.
Thankfully an old record label doesn’t have to operate on that level of hip neediness, and feel the need to reposition itself as heritage – yet. And that way the cover art can be nerdy and beautiful without being arch or ironic. I can look at these gorgeous Martha Argerich covers and feel pure nostalgia. Not nostalgia tainted by marketing.
(The music helps, of course.)

In the mid-sixties, when Dutch artist Marte Röling was in her mid-twenties, she was commissioned to create a series of album covers for Fontana Records, a subsidiary of Philips Records.
Röling’s illustrated covers are some of the best illustrated album art I can think of. Especially as a series they withstood the test of time, and still feel relevant and beautiful.

Informed more by British Pop Art than by its American sister, the series of covers combines portraits with a Robert Indiana-esque (American Pop, yes, I know) stencil font. Röling’s signature heavy black lines, shadowed with colored lines, peppered with a sprinkle of various cultural references incorporated in the portraits (from fashion illustration to Egyptian art to Oceanic facial tattoos), are so distinct, that it’s weird that I never saw them as award winners in any old Graphis Annuals. But come to think of it, in the sixties, professional recognition was all about the dudes, so misogyny may have just a little bit to do with it.

Röling did some more graphic work throughout the seventies, and stuck with the clean line drawing/stencil type combo. Her Red Cross stamps are a good example. I love the one that just has the red cross with type. If that isn’t timeless, please tell me what is.

She moved on to become the grand dame of commissioned public sculptures and monumental installations in the Netherlands. It’s the older graphic stuff however, that I’m digging.