Project from one of my Visual Communication classes at Loyola. This project was about to do research on designers that were Black that were not as well known. I chose Blue Note Records and did research along with creating the poster that is shown on the right side.

Research:

Blue Note Jazz Records has been known worldwide. It started out from two white immigrants, Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff. They have always had an interest in Jazz and from there they created the Blue Note Jazz Records in 1939. They worked with Jazz musicians to help produce and record their jazz songs. Then, they became interested in hiring a designer by the name of Reid Miles to help create artwork for the Jazz musicians they have worked with. The conflict here was that Jazz was considered to be a place where Black individuals could discuss issues they faced as a community. Jazz was for Black people, but Blue Note, being one of the most popular companies creating artwork for well known Jazz songs and Musicians, was composed of white designers . From an accredited source on JSTOR, it said that to be a part of the creative aspect of Jazz, you do not need to be of color, but would need to be interested in “Afro American culture” and a fan of Jazz music. Reid Miles, the main creator of these Jazz album cover art, was not even a fan of Jazz and was still designing art for the genre. Reid Miles did have a creative mind in creating the album covers. His way of cropping the images of Jazz musicians, bold colors, and modern style was innovative. Many people around the world loved his covers because of how they stood out. But they were not made in a way that Black people would have created the artwork. White people do portray Jazz album covers differently than Black designers would. White people create Jazz album covers portraying the main person in a heroic stance, while as Black people look towards the connections the person in the photo has to Afro American culture. The “white[‘s] perspective of jazz musicians as creative individuals rather than members of a vibrant community” (JSTOR). In the last two slides, Laini Abernathy, a Black designer, shows how different and more expressive the art is with the colors and the designs compared to what Reid Miles has done. Laini has infused Afro American culture into the designs to make a statement for the Black community.

Sources:

Dougherty, Carissa Kowalski. “The Coloring of Jazz: Race and Record Cover Design in American Jazz, 1950 to 1970.” Design Issues, vol. 23, no. 1, 2007, pp. 47–60. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25224088. Accessed 10 Oct. 2022.

“From the Collection: Laini (Sylvia Abernathy).” From the Collection: Laini (Sylvia Abernathy) – Letterform Archive, 19 Mar. 2019, https://letterformarchive.org/news/view/laini-sylvia-abernathy. 

Kimber. “Kimber.” GRAMMY Museum, 2 Apr. 2021, https://grammymuseum.org/museum-at-home/revisit-blue-note-the-finest-in-jazz/.

“Reid Miles, the Guy Who Designed Blue Note.” Jazz in Europe, 20 Sept. 2022, https://jazzineurope.mfmmedia.nl/2022/09/reid-miles-the-guy-who-designed-blue-note/.

“The Art of Blue Note Records.” Purveyor of Curios, Fancy Goods & Literal Ephemera, 30 Sept. 2022, https://splendoid.net/blue-note-records-circling-the-square-best-of-jazz-graphic-design.

Voxdotcom, director. YouTube, YouTube, 19 Nov. 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KNgA7dDs90E&t=10s. Accessed 10 Oct. 2022.