User:Gcon00/Alex Steinweiss

Early Life:

(current intro paragraph is a copy/paste from new York times) Born on March 24, 1917 in Brooklyn, Alex Steinweiss was the son of a women's shoe designer from Warsaw and a seamstress from Riga, Latvia. His parents had first moved to the Lower East Side of Manhattan and later on, settled in the Brighton Beach area of Brooklyn.

Steinweiss earned a scholarship to the Parsons School of Design, and graduated in 1937.

Career:

After graduation Steinweiss impressed Lucian Bernhard, the renowned German poster designer, with his portfolio, Bernhard got him a job in his friend Joseph Binder's studio. Steinweiss worked for three years for the Austrian poster designer Joseph Binder, whose flat color and simplified human figures were popular at the time and influenced his own work.

(current is just copy and pasted text) During World War II, Alex Steinweiss served as Columbia Records' advertising manager before leaving to take up a role at the Navy's Training and Development Center in New York City. There, he was responsible for creating teaching materials and cautionary posters. Steinweiss continued to do freelance work for Columbia after the war. During a lunch meeting with Columbia, the president of the company, Ted Wallerstein, presented Steinweiss with a new innovation that was being prepared to be unveiled by the company: the long-playing record. Unfortunately, the Kraft paper that was folded to protect the 78 rpm records proved to be too heavy. The Kraft paper left marks on the vinyls microgroove of the 33 1/3 rpm LPs when they were stacked. Steinweiss later went on to develop what is now known as a record jacket.

(citation for paragraph under career) The first illustrated album cover for 78 rpm records was created by Alex Steinweiss in 1938, while he also developed the paperboard container for 33 1/3 LPs in 1953, which went on to become the industry norm for packaging for more than three decades.

Alex Steinweiss was involved in creating album cover designs from 1938 until his semi-retirement in 1973, where he shifted his focus towards painting. Throughout his career, he designed around 2500 covers, his career can be divided into five different periods:

The first period, from 1938 to around 1945, Steinweiss designed all the covers for Columbia, where he developed the complete visual "language" for album design.

In the second period, from 1945 to approximately 1950, Steinweiss was no longer the exclusive designer for Columbia, and he started to work with other companies. This period is occasionally referred to as the "First Golden Age" of the album cover. The Steinweiss Scrawl, which is now recognized as Alex Steinweiss's signature font, made its initial appearance around 1947. Steinweiss claims[citation needed] to have invented the LP cover, which first appeared in 1948.

In approximately 1950, Steinweiss designed the covers and record labels for Remington and established a relationship spanning over 20 years with both Decca and London Records. During this period, he primarily used drawing as his preferred design technique for clients such as Columbia, RCA, Remington, Decca and London. This marked his third design period, in which he employed drawing, lettering, and layout to create brilliant designs, though perhaps not as memorable as his late 1940s work It was during this period that he collaborated with Margaret Bourke-White on a memorable series of covers for Columbia.

From the mid-1950s onwards, Steinweiss incorporated photography into his work.

In 1942, as the art director for the label, Steinweiss recruited Jim Flora, a talented fine arts graduate from Cincinnati. This recruitment launched Flora's 40+ year career as a commercial artist.

Death[edit]
Alex Steinweiss passed away on July 18, 2011, in Sarasota, Florida, as confirmed by his son. He is survived by his daughter Hazel Steinweiss, six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren, in addition to his son.

The graphic design and music communities were deeply saddened by the news of Steinweiss's passing, as he was widely recognized as a pioneering legend in the field of album cover design. Despite passing, Steinweiss's legacy lives on, and his designs remain a source of inspiration for designers and art enthusiasts all over the world. His influence on the world of graphic design and album cover art will undoubtedly be felt for many years to come.

Awards[edit]
In 1998, the Alex Awards were created and named in honor of Alex Steinweiss

in 2002, the Alex Awards became an official ALA award.