Interview with Steven Jurgensmeyer - Designer of Album Covers
What got you into designing album covers?
Luck. Right place, right time. I was a HUGE music fan growing up, but I grew up in Florida in the 70s, and didn’t love a lot of what I was hearing on the radio down there. Molly Hatchet, and such. I was an avid CREEM magazine reader, as well as Circus, so I was definitely aware of a wider variety of music than I was hearing. From Todd Rundgren and the New York Dolls, to punk rock, The Velvet Underground and everything in between. But it was not easy to find that stuff down there — thank goodness there was one really hip record store! When it came time to consider colleges, a good friend and music mentor suggested I look at Boston. His sister was a couple years older, and she also turned me on to new music, attended Boston College, and that’s where he was headed. I did not have much interest in BC, but Boston University was in the heart of the city — Kenmore Square in all its glory. I went up to visit and loved it. More importantly perhaps, is I saw The Neighborhoods, Mission of Burma and LaPeste at the Bradford Hotel Ballroom, and then Human Sexual Response at the BC cafeteria. Game over – I was BU bound!
Upon graduation, I worked in the advertising business, which was super hot in Boston at that time, as an Assistant Art Director. This was pre-computer revolution, so you had to be able to sketch, draw type, and conceptualize for clients - a super good place to start. A friend showed me an advertisement for an Assistant Art Director position at a new record label in Salem, MA. That turned out to be Rykodisc, the legendary independent label and the first CD label in the country. It’s funny…I had a great interview with the AD, and the president of the label and I just *knew* I had the job. And they offered it to me…
What is the most important design element of any album cover?
I think that depends on many things — the band, management, the label — but to me I always try to have the cover reflect the artist and/or the music inside. So many of us who bought records they’d never heard, have had the experience that the music didn’t sound like perhaps what one thought it would, based on the cover, and that was sometimes disappointing and confusing. So that’s one thing I always seek to accomplish.
One thing that has changed for the better and given designers more freedom is the ability to ignore the “top third” rule that a lot of labels adhered to. Basically, the Sales and Marketing sides of the business always liked to have the artists name at the top of the LP for retail purposes, meaning the name would stick out on the top when records are in bins. That way, they believe, more people would see it, perhaps pick it up and ultimately buy it. My issue here is the album cover art we are creating will live on long beyond its retail life. And, of course, slapping it at the top just may not work with design. I’m not sure artists would love to see big letters across their foreheads, but that principle was a very real thing at some labels.
How has technology changed how you do business with artists and labels?
One thing I feel very lucky to have is the experience and knowledge gained from going through old-school print production. I think it’s important to know the CMYK process. Nowadays, you rarely see the production process; it takes money to get files printed. Back then, you sent out a typewritten page of paper with the font, size and column width. You’d get that back, glue it to mechanicals along with Xeroxed photos, and put tissue paper over the whole thing where you would draw —in markers! —what the color breaks were. The color house would make the color film and give you a proof. ANY change meant new film and a new proof.
The early desktop design days always remind me of the time a musician brought files in to Rykodisc designed by a friend of his. Unfortunately, they were all composed in RGB. Because of the color spectrum of the artwork, I just knew it would convert poorly to CMYK. I sat with the artist and converted them and I’m not sure if the color drained faster in his face or in the image onscreen!
But overall technology has been a plus. Turnaround time expectations seem to be faster, that’s for sure. But it’s also a lot easier to change or modify things on demand. Some artists want to see a lot of different ideas, and you can do that with the computer. And almost always, there are slight revisions or retouching that would simply be too expensive to make prior to Photoshop.
Do you usually pitch album cover concepts to the artists or labels, or do they come into the project with their own ideas in mind?
Both. And everything in between. Working at independent labels — I was Director of Creative Services at Rounder Records as well as Rykodisc — meant budgets were often tight. Unless they were local, I rarely went to photo shoots. That meant if it was a highly conceptual cover, you had to have really detailed discussions with the photographer, the artist, management, the label, before you had the shoot. Two experiences come to mind: Songs of Mirth and Melancholy by Branford Marsalis and Joey Calderazzo
Art Design: Steven Jurgensmeyer. Photograph: Stephen Sheffield.
This was a highly evolved concept. Branford is so great to work with. He sends me the music in advance and says, “Design what you hear.” What a dream. And also terrifying. On Songs of Mirth and Melancholy, the music only had two instruments, saxophone and piano, but it was so beautiful and sparse. On the flip side, it was also very intimate, as Branford and Joey had been playing together for a long time and that was really apparent. So you had on one hand, wide open space, and on the other, the exact opposite: intimacy. I decided I could (hopefully) realize both things through scale. I put together really, really tight mockups with stock art that had the two musicians overwhelmed by the size of the location. Definitely one of my all time favorites to work on and realize. In my experience, jazz artists always give you a lot of creative space.
On the other hand, for her album Never Been Gone, Carly Simon had a specific idea, utilizing a photograph of her taken by her husband. The record is a “look back” on some of her hits with new interpretations, hence the cover shot of her looking through a magnifying glass. She also ended up drawing all of the type, so my job became simply executing her concept. It’s all part of the job, but was fun hanging at her house on Martha’s Vineyard though, where most of the work was done!
Which album was your favorite to work on?
Songs of Mirth and Melancholy is way up there. I was very happy with Raising Sand by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, which was photographed by Pamela Springsteen. Those were fun conference calls! And one of my favorite artists — who played my wedding! — was Mikey Dread, and I got to do a couple of conceptual covers for him, in his greatest hits Best Sellers (which I also got to choose the tunes and sequence) and its follow-up Obsession. On that one, we decided to make a Rasta version of the classic Calvin Klein perfume ads right down to naming the record Obsession by Mikey Dread and having a model appear on the cover. Mikey was totally cool with that and he appeared on the back. That one was a lot of fun.
And of course, I always love working with new and upcoming independent artists who sometimes need that extra something – perhaps a flexible budget – to add a professional finish to their work. You can see a lot of those on my website: www.stevenjurgensmeyer.com.
If you were able to provide creative direction or design concepts to one band, who would it be and why?
The Clash. Definitely. They were my ticket out of boring music. I loved them. They were foundational in many aspects of my music life and they have great album covers. That debut album cover let you know exactly what you were going to hear. “London Calling,” “Give ‘Em Enough Rope” and especially “Black Market Clash” are amazing. Aside from music, I learned about politics, DIY, and reggae music from them. They name checked reggae artists Dillinger, Leroy Smart, Delroy Wilson and Ken Boothe in ONE song, and I went out and tracked down records from them. That era of music was so dependent on imagery. A lot of classics from that era.
I know that you also have a website called AllMusicBooks.com where you and avid readers publish reviews of music books. How did that come about?
I’ve always been a reader in general, and especially of music books. Anything, any genre. When Rounder Records got sold to the Concord Music Group, I was laid off — not a surprise. And one cold and snowy winter day, I had the idea of creating a community site for fans to interact with via reading and writing reviews, giving ratings to reviews and reviewers, and finding and buying books from the site via Amazon. I threw myself into it and added each and every book by hand, with the covers and all relevant material. This was 2010 and just before I launched, Goodreads launches. I almost threw in the towel. But, after searching for “music books” on Goodreads and getting just the worst results ever (seriously: search “music” or “jazz - it’s pathetic), I put the site up soon after. We have over 10,000 books listed by genre, and several thousand reviews. It’s fun, and I thank you for contributing your excellent reviews!
And, to keep up with times, right before Covid we launched the AllMusicBooks “Deep Dive” podcast where we speak with the authors of music books. These things take a lot of time to research and write, and I love them so much that I wanted to put a spotlight on the people behind them. In fact, we now have added a sister podcast called AllMusicPodcasts that includes speaking to the directors of music documentaries. There are just so many today, and I love watching those as well. And it sure seems there are a TON of those these days. So tune in!
And for the lightning round questions: Color or Black & White?
Depends on the project, but I love black and white, and feel it can convey lots of different emotions.
Serif or Sans Serif?
Sans serif. Perhaps I’m a type traditionalist.
Bold or Italics?
Bold. Definitely.
Indie or Mainstream?
To listen to or design for? I came up in the punk rock movement, and worked at two of the greatest independent labels ever, so either way I’m going to have to go Indie!