ESSAY

How has graphic design influenced and shaped music culture?

Music and design have been closely linked for many years, as they interlink so closely in popular culture. Design has been used to interpret and advertise all genres of music. This essay will look  at how design has come to play such a big role in music culture through the decades. With the  many changes to how we interpret and listen to music, design has had to change around it in order to keep up with technological advances and differing public opinions. In this day in age there is lesser influence from graphic mediums such as album artwork but more of an overall aesthetic from the style of music and the star behind it. 

The impact of sound and vision can make you feel similar things as they are both senses and create a reaction from what you experience. The condition synesthesia proves that music and design can be closely linked. Synesthesia is a condition where your senses get mixed up and for example you could visualise sound or hear colours. It is a common thing for people to associate sounds with an image or the other way around. The interest  of colour and sound goes back to classic Greek philosophy, it was argued whether colour, like pitch, could be thought to be a physical quality of music. Pythagoras discovered the mathematical order of musical harmony by relating the length of strings to the successive octaves. This then led to the idea that colours and sounds could be related too, following mathematical rules.’  The idea has carried on throughout the ages to where it is now a diagnosable medical condition. In the mid 20th century The artist Wassily Kandinsky claimed he could hear colour and see sound. Much of his work has a distinct and very abstract style which is obviously how he has interpreted his unusual skill. Although there is no proof that he actually had synesthesia .The theory of synesthesia proves that sound and visuals are undeniably closely linked. 

As long as the music industry has been a capitalist industry there has been the need for graphic branding behind it. ‘Most studies simply assume a capitalist mode of production and the commodity status of popular music, or conflate capitalism with money, instead of viewing it as a social form that profoundly shapes not only production and consumption but also social relations and perceptions. There have been, however, studies that imagine the music industry and , more broadly, what Horkheimer and Adorno famously dubbed the ‘culture industry’ The music industry has brought a rich culture and the need for music has benefitted other industries one of which is the design industry. Graphic Design has played a massive part in the definition of music from band logos and album artwork and concert posters. Artwork on records started to appear in the 30s designers like Alex Steinweiss, whose illustrated covers for singers such as the classical records of Beethoven, or Paul Robeson, led to huge rise in sales. but it was the introduction of the 33⅓rpm record which was able to have a folded over card sleeve that was the perfect medium for artwork to be integrated. The big square space was perfect for artistic freedom to describe and decorate the record and draw people in visually before they heard the sound. 

In the days when records were the only technology it was a bigger deal to go out a buy one as they were bulky to store, expensive to buy, This is the complete opposite to todays music listening habits where people have hundreds of songs stored in their iTunes library and can access millions for free through streaming sites in a split second. Tony Bennett said that when you bought a record, “you felt like you were taking home your very own work of art”’( https://www.udiscovermusic.com/features/history-album-artwork/)  When records were popular the album artwork had bigger budgets as they were more special physical objects that you would choose to buy carefully. The artwork on a record is a person’s first point of call with it so it is judged even before you hear the music. The graphics were often created by famous and very established artists for successful bands and it was a great honour to have your work on a record sleeve. ‘they want people to indulge in the pleasure of unwrapping, opening, and revealing, because this is something that buying online simply cannot hope to emulate.’ (print and production finished for cd and dvd packaging, lowey, hove,

The compact disk (CD) was introduced in 1981, this was a dramatic change for album artwork as it was considerably smaller on a 4x4 plastic sleeve rather than a much bigger card record sleeve. Although CD’s still showcased album artwork

Back in the 1960’s and early 1970s’ psychedelic rock acts, such as The Beatles, Led Zeppelin Jimmy Hendrix, Pink Floyd were popular. The culture of Psychedelia was heavily influencing this music and was also having a great influence on popular culture in general. At the time there was a trend within the music and hippy culture to consume drugs such as LSD with psychedelic effects  ‘The name “psychedelic” refers to drugs that were popular with the youth culture of the time. Posters for rock concerts tried to visually express the feeling of tripping out’ (Renée C. Tafoya. (2017). Psychadellic 60s,Graphic Design History. Available: https://visualartsdepartment.wordpress.com/psychedelic-60s/. Last accessed 24 April 2018.) The drugs taken at the time inspired a strong aesthetic for the artwork and culture of the movement, ’LSD, Mescal and other anti-serotonergic hallucinogens sometimes produce synesthesia, particularly the sound to sight variety. Almost all measures of colour vision are affected in volunteers given LSD. Given the drug’s rapid onset of action we conclude that it must operate on preexisting pathways. LSD is thought to have two main effects: increasing transmission of primary sensory inputs at early levels while inhibiting pathways within the cortex’ The psychedelic visuals were brought through in band’s artwork. The artwork used intense optical colour vibrations inspired by the pop art movement, curvilinear shapes and illegible hand-drawn type. The album artwork had a very strong and iconic aesthetic that most definitely gave the music an image for people to recognise and follow. At the time the festival movement was starting out such as the free festivals which Glastonbury festival and Isle of White festival started out as. The posters for these events continue this strong aesthetic even still to this day. The strong style of artwork was followed by American artists such as Wes Wilson who was famous for his melting letters and Victor Moscoso who was famous for his use of vibrating colours. They both used distinct psychedelic visuals in their work. The movement came into popular culture and influenced other movements such as pop art and op art. Artists like Andy Warhol used vibrant colours and lithograph techniques taking inspiration from psychedelia. The work of Richard Avedon for the Beatles album cover was very popular and brought the movement into the mainstream. 

The punk rock movement of the mid 1970s included bands like the sex pistols the UK and Ramones in the US became extremely popular in the with their strong aesthetic of rebellion and anarchy, bold clothing choices, safety pins, rips, studs, chokers, leather jackets, thick chain necklaces, died hair and dark smudged makeup. The graphic design associated with this music fitted the strong fashions and loud messages. The movement was easy to follow as the artwork were just simple collages, this enabled fans of the bands to create fanzines of inspired work it also kept within the theme that the movement was for the working classes and could be accessed by everyone. The do it yourself attitude lead to the startup of hundreds of independent record labels. Punk was fundamentally agains consumerism and capitalism, but at the same time they needed to rely on this in order to survive as a movement. They relied on ticket sales and sales of albums, so the artwork was important to the music to keep the image strong in order to sell to the masses. Being heavily visually influenced the punk movement many artists such as Barbra Kruger and Jamie Reed developed a very distinct style using the key factors of the aesthetic. Jamie Reed’s work has become iconic to the movement due to his work for the sex pistols such as god save the queen. 

80s and 90s rave culture is similarly inspired by psychedelia as well as the rise in popularity recreational drugs such as ecstasy. Rave is symbolically linked to the smiley face, associating with gurning faces and the release of serotonin in the brain making people feel a sense of happiness. The symbol was first used by Danny Rampling in a club flyer for his club Shoom. People in this scene also followed a distinct unique style, oversized t-shirts, neon colours, sports clothing, shell suits. People took part in free and illegal raves in order to fight authority and get away from their problems. The culture started out originally free raves but with the rise of super clubs in places like Ibiza raving culture became popular and still is around today. The movement relied heavily on strong graphic design in their posters to advertise events. The design paved a new type of music culture which was less about physical album copies but hearing a song once and not knowing its name.

The loss of physical album artwork has paved the way for new ways for music to be visualised such as music videos, online social media presence and merchandise, Record labels have to put in big efforts to get music videos out online as there is very big popularity with the rise of streaming sites and youtube, videos can get millions of views from all over the globe. 27% of people surveyed claimed that youtube was their main way of listening to music. This percentage is quite substantial when only 9% said that listing to records and none said that Cd’s were their main way of listening to music.  The need for graphic design is being made redundant by the new need for Music videos to be shown with these sites which rack up millions of views. ’As the music business changes – with customers no longer going into record shops and lingering over the visuals before they buy and album – the cover is just one element of a larger branding and marketing campaign, often involving a promotional photo-shoot, videos and merchandise.’ (Martin Chilton . (2017). Cover Story: A History Of Album Artwork. Available: https://www.udiscovermusic.com/in-depth-features/history-album-artwork/. Last accessed 21 April 2018.)

Since the rise of the internet and music videos, we have come across the aesthetics of a pop star. Pop stars give music a humanised aesthetic rather than needing to be portrayed in the format of album artwork. ’Rock stars, as agents of consumer discipline, help to define the norms and limits of the existing sophistical consumer, and thus individual possibilities. They anchor a chaotic aesthetico- idealogical discourse and represent it in a ‘humanised’ form by investing the human body itself. Thus the record managed to achieve an enhanced social usefulness far exceeding the mere ‘need’ for record music. (Simon Frith, Andrew Goodwin (1990). On Record: Rock, Pop and the Written Word. London: Routledge Publishers. p50. In this new era of music people need a deeper aesthetic to follow with the music so record labels have manufactured people into the music in order to sell it. Music is sold by exploiting females femininity and males masculinity in order to create a superhuman for the masses to gaze upon. This manufactured approach to selling music has made music loose its authenticity and substance that it once had in in its golden era of the 20th century. 

In recent years the vinyl has had a renaissance and has become popular again,  2017 was the highest year for vinyl sales since 1991 according to Lilly Puckett from the Fader. this has brought back the concept of an album as an object and making buying music a more valuable experience again. ‘although vinyl lost its status as Britain’s leading albums format as long ago as 1985 and thus looked set for a permanent decline, sales of vinyl LPs rose year on year by 43.7 per cent in 2011.’(Richard Osbourne, Vinyl: a history of the analogue record )  Vinyl has gone from produced for the massed to a luxury item in recent years. This can be put down to the fact that music has become very easily available thanks to streaming online, but buying a vinyl is a physical thing that requires effort to play, not just pressing a button. To physically hold an album has become a luxury. People buy a vinyl of an artist they think is really special as they are expensive to buy and require effort to play. 

A group of people under the age of 25 were asked about their habits when listening to music, 63% had never bought a record before. This high percentage shows the decline of records due to other technological advances and the changes in people’s listening habits. However 36% of people surveyed did buy records and this shows the vinyl market does still exist. This is now a smaller more special process than when it was a popular way of listening to music. Just 9% of the people surveyed said vinyl was their main way of listening to music. This point is interesting as no-one said that CD’s were their main way of listening to music. this is a big contrast from what the result would have been 15 years ago when CDs were an extremely popular way of listening to music. This shows that vinyl is becoming more popular again. 

Concluding this, it has been established that music is undeniably closely linked to graphic design and has been for many decades. although the way graphic design has been delivered has had to adapt around the ever changing music industry. Technological advances including the internet has had a massive impact on the shift in the industry. Music has become a lot less special than it once was with the rise of streaming sites where music can be listened to once and you never actually see in physical form. Coming from this lack of physical music Vinyl records has seen i rise in sales as it seems a younger generation want to own special albums in the flesh.