Vintage Jazz Album Artwork & Krzysztof Komeda

Vintage Vanguard has a collection of brilliantly designed album covers from the Blue Note era. Clicking the thumbnails gives you the bigger versions. They’re all worth gazing at, even if you’re not a designer. Note the homogeneous back covers: there is a sort of standard that works across all the albums (front & back) that just instantly relates the music and era. Brilliantly telling without looking out-dated the way album covers in the ’70s and ’80s can be. The classic designs like these are what scares me about Web 2.0 design aesthetics: will it all one day look terribly bubblegum and gross? I tend to lean towards position and angle when working on projects … hopefully there’s some part of what I do that leans towards a classic feel the way great album covers do.

Also, that website has tons of great album art — not just old Blue Note stuff. Browse around and check out old and rare Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, Sonny Rollins, Buddy Rich and Keith Garrett albums, too. I’m really fascinated by the Komeda designs: the Polish composer and jazz musician worked for Bergman and Polanski, but it’s really hard to find the albums shown on the Vanguard site. I am, however, hunting down Astigmatic as we speak.

My favorite Komeda is still this one but that is a very cool cover.