In this blog we have previously presented designs for album covers made by pioneers like the ones that Daniel Gil produced for Hispavox in his previous stage to Alianza Editorial (see previous post).
The long play vinyl record format, due to its dimensions (31×31 centimetres), and its wide diffusion, constituted an ideal “canvas” for the designer to give the best of his creativity. Throughout the twentieth century there are magnificent examples of this graphic genre as is the case of the legendary jazz label “Blue Note”, Capitol, Verve or CBS in the 50s, 60s and 70s.
Collaborations between musicians, photographers, designers or plastic artists were a constant since the vinyl support for the music was accompanied by a cover that displayed the contents in the most attractive way possible. Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton or Peter Blake are just a few examples.
What has come to be called “tardofranquismo” (the last stage of Franco’s dictatorship) as well as the Transition, had also, in some way, a series of graphic features that sought to convey a spirit of vindication and protest. A profuse use of the “Bernhard Antique” typography, “burned” photographs, excessively exaggerated weaves served to create an atmosphere in the anti-bourgeois graphic, supposedly clumsy. Also in those years in Spain the collaboration between musicians, designers and photographers constituted a new phenomenon that produced results like those shown in this post.
Along these lines, the covers designed for the record company EDIGSA, founded in 1961 with the aim of publishing records in Catalan from a collective called “Els Setze Jutges” (The Setze Jutges), stand out.
The covers reproduced in this post range from 1972 to 1986 and include recordings from other parts of Spain. From Joan Miró collaborating with María del Mar Bonet, Salvador Dalí illustrating “La canción del jinete” by Paco Ibáñez or Juan Genovés making the cover for the album “Silencio” by Adolfo Celdrán, together with the design works by Taula de Disseny or Juan Gatti, this gallery of images shows how interesting this formula of collaboration between music and plastic is.
In the booklet that accompanied the album “Dies i hores de la Nova Cançó” there is a phrase that could summarise what was behind this interesting cultural phenomenon: “A cover has to be like a short, convincing, attractive phrase”.