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Enoch Light. Discotheque, 1964. Designed by George Giusti. |
Book design is not the only casualty in the rush toward digitization. Cover design in the music world has been pretty much relegated to a thumbnail image for a digital download or an image for a CD case but back in the heyday of the LP the cover design was a vital component to the accompanying music.
Over at psd tuts+ Sonali Vora takes on a trip through 50 Years of Typography in Album Covers. With examples from the 1960’s up to the present we get a vivid reminder of what we are losing in the switch to digital formats.
Designed by Alex Steinweiss
In 1978 the band XTC used the cover of their album Go 2 for a typographic rant on design and selling records. It begins:
“This is a RECORD COVER. This writing is the DESIGN upon the record cover. The DESIGN is to help SELL the record. We hope to draw your attention to it and pick up.”
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XTC. Go 2, 1978. Created by the design group Hipgnosis |
Clearly this mantra is applicable to the book world.