I love most of the blue note record covers from 1945 to 1970, amazing stuff.

The Japanese site vintage vanguard contains most of these covers, which is great, although it is pretty ironic that the site itself is one of the most badly designed websites I have seen.

A few years back I wanted to use this type of design direction in redesigning blackplanet.com.  

It would bring back a certain ‘cool’ (like ice) to the site, and focus on the quiet ‘style’ that has been slowly but consistently disappearing from African American culture in general and hip-hop culture in particular.

But alas in the world of business, the bossman almost certainly will choose what they think is ‘hip’ and “cool” or what they think will sell; which is invariably a pale imitation of the businesses competitors.  

I call this the Microsoft ‘process’ of design:
Business goal drives all aspects of the product creation process, including wether visual design and experience fit within the limited and invariably short sighted business goals.

In opposition there is the  Apple ‘way’ of design:
Human need, behavior, social and cultural patterns are observed, analyzed, studied, then internalized  by the designers, who then make a solution which incorporates and accepts the result of those studies and condense them into useful appropriate and focused solution to the original need.

What does that have to do with record covers you ask?

Well a lot of these represent using very clear and simple means (type+photo+color) the music on the record.

Something lost on most modern ‘designers’ who are focused on decoration and flair over purpose.