Firebird: Alex Steinweiss’ 78rpm album covers and the letterpress printing process NOVAES DE REZENDE, Andre / PhD / Facamp / Brazil Graphic design / Letterpress / Album covers / Design history early album covers published before Steinweiss, his covers also had to be printed by letterpress engraved plates. This paper ar- In 1940, American graphic designer Alex Steinweiss (1917-2011) gues that the printing process available to Steinweiss influenced began to design album covers for 78rpm records. This paper ar- and characterized his work. To this end, we conducted an exer- gues that the letterpress printing process available to Steinweiss cise to reprint Steinweiss’ album cover of Stravinsky´s Firebird directly influenced his work. To this end, we conducted an ex- Suite(1947) using the letterpress printing process. This exercise ercise to reproduce virtually the same process to reprint Stein- was part of this author’s Ph.D. research on Alex Steinweiss which weiss’ album cover for the Firebird Suite (1947). This experiment brought light to some of the technical issues that characterized allowed us to understand a number of technical issues that char- Steinweiss’ work on his early album covers. acterized Steinweiss’ work on his early album covers. 2. The Early Years 1. Introduction Alex Steinweiss was born in Brooklyn, New York – USA on March About forty years after the 78 rpm record was invented, the re- 24, 1917. In 1930, Steinweiss attended Abraham Lincoln High corded music industry began to effectively develop a visual con- School. The teacher responsible for the art department also nection to the recorded musical content of their product. In 1940, taught graphic design. His name was Leon Friend, a cultured pol- the early work of American graphic designer Alex Steinweiss ish immigrant and co-author of the book “Graphic Design” (co- (1917-2011) was a product of this goal as he began to design authored with Joseph Hefter in 1936). According to Steven Heller album covers for 78rpm records while working at Columbia Re- Friend’s curriculum balanced the fine and applied arts and offered cords. more commercial art courses than most major art schools. He introduced leading contemporary designers and inspired many Steinweiss was not the first commercial artist or graphic designer of his students to become designers, art directors, illustrators, typographers and photographers. (Heller, 2007) to design illustrated album covers for 78rpm records. Victor and Decca released a few illustrated covers before Columbia hired During the 1930s, many European commercial artists and de- Steinweiss (Marmorstein 2007), but he is known for being a pio- signers immigrated to the United States and their work influenced neer in album cover design, while exploring a semantic associa- the forthcoming American production. During this time, Friend tion between album covers and the musical content of the record. was able to invite historically important figures to speak directly According to Kohler (1999: 13), ‘despite all the designers who to his students. According to Steinweiss (McKnight-trontz; Stein- quickly followed his lead, whether at Columbia or other labels, it weiss, 2000: 18), it was in Leon Friend’s class that he learned was the work of Alex Steinweiss that created the look of record to recognize the works of designers like A. M. Cassandre, Lucian packaging in the 1940’s.’ Bernhard, Joseph Binder, Herbert Bayer, Jean Carlu, Tom Benrimo, John Atherton, Lester Beall and E. McKnight Kauffer. It was also During the 1930’s, 78rpm records were usually protected in sim- Friend who introduced Bauhaus to Steinweiss. ple paper sleeves. These sleeves contained almost no informa- tion, at the most, the name of the record label. Because of the Steinweiss grew interested in these European designers as he limited playing time available on each side of the discs, many completed his studies with Leon Friend. He graduated from high selections had to be recorded on more than one disc. During the school in 1934 and attended Parsons in 1937, at which time he second half of the 1930’s, a set of discs that made up a record- looked for a job as an assistant to Lucian Bernhard (1883-1972), ing of a selection began to be called an album. Before this, ‘there a poster designer who lived in New York City at the time. At the wasn’t much to illustrate beyond the tiny circular disk label’ (Mar- beginning of the 20th century, Bernhard helped to establish the morstein 2007: 333). The album consisted of a set of sleeves Plakatstil (poster style) movement in Germany. This movement made from thick white, brown or grey paper bound in a hard cover. focused on the use of flat colors and the visual synthesis of the The album cover and spine bore the artist’s name and title of the objects that were represented in those posters. Developing an album printed by letterpress. approach of image synthesis inherited from Toublouse-Lautrec and the Beggarstaffs, Bernhard frequently worked solely on the Steinweiss’ intention was to design new and attractive covers by representation of the object in question, predominately delimited means of color, form, texture and letterforms and the use of sym- by flat color surfaces and accompanied only by the name of the bolic and archetypical imagery (Reagan 2009: 71). But, like the product brand. NOVAES DE REZENDE, Andre 2012. Firebird: Alex Steinweiss’ 78rpm album covers and the letterpress printing process. In Farias, Priscila Lena; Calvera, Anna; Braga, Marcos da Costa & Schincariol, Zuleica (Eds.). Design frontiers: territories, concepts, technologies [=ICDHS 2012 - 8th Conference of the International Committee for Design History & Design Studies]. São Paulo: Blucher, 2012. ISBN 978-85-212-0692-7, DOI 10.5151/design-icdhs-076 Firebird: Alex Steinweiss’ 78rpm album covers and the letterpress printing process 334). Offset printing was new and it was still a very expensive technology. Different from the offset process, letterpress was not an ideal process to create overlays of diverse halftone screens in order to simulate diverse color tones. Instead, flat colors were printed individually. Consequently, the process and production cost limited Steinweiss to three or four flat colors with halftones only on one or two plates (fig. 1). With the experience gained while working for Joseph Binder and his knowledge of poster artists introduced to him by Leon Friend, Steinweiss decided to design his covers as miniature posters. Steinweiss stated that: The beauty of the music had to be handled visually, and the elements of color, composition, lettering and subjective details Figure 1. Detail of the “South Pacific” album cover designed by Alex Steinweiss had to project forcefully. I, therefore, handled each design as a (photo by Andre Novaes de Rezende). miniature poster - able, at once, to hint at the subjective contents of the music while attracting the eye of the prospective buyer. Lucian Bernhard, unable to take on Steinweiss, recommended he (Reagan 2009: 71) work with another poster designer, Joseph Binder (1898-1972) from Austria who, during those days, also resided in New York City. After the miniature sketch was ready, they were enlarged to actual During 1937, Steinweiss began to work for Binder as an assistant size. If his design was approved, Steinweiss prepared a final ver- in poster design. According to Binder’s way of thinking (Binder sion for reproduction. In order to get the final version of his cover 1976), a poster should be functionally projected for instantaneous ready for print, he would prepare it for camera art1. reading. Instantaneous reading occurred by means of stylization. In the late 1930’s and early 1940’s this entailed doing the key Binder conceived stylization as an act of ‘designing in the style of plate on illustration board and the colors in black on individual our time’, but also an action to eliminate everything unessential overlays. The engraver would match his ink colors to the sketch. according to the optical function of the commercial art. Then Steinweiss had to teach the engraver’s staff how to drop the guidelines between colors so that they would not print. (McKnight- trontz; Steinweiss 2000: 43) Alex Steinweiss worked with Binder until 1939 when he learned that CBS (Columbia Broadcasting System) purchased an old plant Once the final composition was printed, it was glued on the hard in Bridgeport, Connecticut where it would open a new company to cover of the album. The liner notes and catalogue of the recording compete with RCA Victor. It was at this time when Steinweiss was label were glued to the inside of the album cover. recommended to work as an art director at Columbia Records. This situation was quite agreeable to Steinweiss because of his early appreciation for music. After the record industry was severely hit 4. Reprinting Steinweiss’ Album Cover of during the US depression of the 1930’s, Columbia Records decided Firebird Suite (1947) they needed to upgrade production in many areas. Steinweiss Having gained access to Kevin Reagan’s book, “Alex Steinweiss: The contributed by restructuring all graphic materials produced at Co- Inventor of the Modern Album Cover”, I was better able to under- lumbia Records including the design of the album covers. stand how the letterpress printing process actually functioned for these particular works and, especially, in regards to the separation Steinweiss’ acquaintance with the music, instruments, composers of colors. and period in which each composer lived was fundamental in the development of his method in creating the images for his covers. This book presents images, in small scale, which reproduce print- His knowledge of music had been motivated since early infancy, ing proofs of color separations related to one of Steinweiss’ covers before any professional ambition. Steinweiss managed to produce (Reagan 2009: 71). This cover was created for the Firebird Suite visual suggestions linked to the history of the works and its com- album (1947).