Just.

Thursday Evening Sketches: Album Cover 002

Don Bronstein, the First staff photographer at Playboy Magazine

Don Bronstein had 2 incredible jobs. The first was being the first staff photographer for Playboy Magazine. The second, was as an award winning house photographer for the legendary Chess Records. He’s hard to find information about but his work is definitely notable, especially now when we’re so influenced by period styles.

Here’s a bio I found at Chicago Magazine:

Don Bronstein (1926-68): In June 1963, in the midst of a three-week gig at Mister Kelly’s, the legendary Rush Street nightclub, Barbra Streisand traveled to the Lake Michigan shoreline with the photographer Don Bronstein. The first staff photographer for Playboy, where he shot covers and centerfolds before embarking on a freelance career in 1963, Bronstein shot Streisand in a radical pose-with her back to the camera. That photo graced the cover of Streisand’s classic fourth album, People, and both singer and cover won Grammys.

Here’s some of his work that I’ve dug up:

And I know I can’t possibly give Don the credit he deserves without including this, although fairly tame considered against today’s standards.

Joseph Albers “Albums” Album Cover Designs at the Minus Project Space, Brooklyn

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.

Design Exploration / Quote / 12×12 / 001