Alex Steinweiss designed many things in his impressive career: liquor bottles, posters, magazines, pamphlets, book covers and titles for TV shows, but he will always be known as the guy who invented the album cover back in 1938.

Before him, they just placed the vinyl records in between pieces of flank steak and sold them only at butchers shops. Okay, that’s a lie, just trying to keep your attention. The records were put in plain brown wrappers until a bright young buck working at Columbia records said, “Boring!” and came up with a much better idea.

Not only did Steinweiss come up with the nuts and bolts of molding cardboard into a standard, practical container (see diagrams here) used to package and market records; he created inspiring artwork to adorn it. He married playful and sophisticated styles with bold contrasting colors, elegant illustrations and clever ways of using the recording artists’ photos as part of the design. Click the link below enjoy some of his work. [Thanks to amyms at metafilter for pointing us to this wonderful site.]

Website: www.alexsteinweiss.com/as_index.html

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