Reid Miles Inspirational jazz art
About two weeks ago I was commissioned to create the album artwork for Rob Mostert’s new album. Rob is an amazing jazz musician and he recorded his new album with no one less than Rudy van Gelder, the legendary Blue Note recording engineer. Because I wasn’t really familiar with jazz music or its art I made myself do a considerable amount of research. Especially because the client wanted to capture the genuine Blue Note style in the artwork, so I had to figure out that style. While doing research I discovered another legend in the Blue Note jazz world, namely: Reid Miles.
Reid Miles was a graphic designer and photographer who designed over 500 covers for Blue Note back in the day. The discovery of this huge name made me stumble through an extra bit of design history which was very interesting. Every once in a while I have such moments, moments in which I discover the work of an artist which makes me stop and wonder: “Why haven’t I seen this before?” It reminds me that there’s still a whole bunch of designers and work I still have to discover.
As far as I can judge it as a non-jazz listener: the work of Reid Miles feels like a perfect visualization of jazz music. Even I felt that these artworks are the way jazz covers should feel and look like, despite the fact that I don’t know much about jazz music. Something I consider to be a little fun fact is that: Reid Miles wasn’t a fan of jazz music either. Yet he perfectly captures the vibe of it with his modernist work, photography and typography. There’s loads if interesting stuff you can find about this brilliant designer and his work, so for more about that I will simply advise you to go search and discover.
To finalize this post and relate it to the artwork I made, in a nutshell: the work of Reid Miles provided me with a great deal of inspiration for the style I needed to give the album artwork of Rob Mostert. I was quite stoked when Rob and his label commissioned me. It provided me with an awesome challenge, a challenge which enabled me to show my versatility as a freelance designer.
The album of Rob Mostert will be released on the 20th of September and it will be released as a 6 page digisleeve album with 3 exterior and 3 interior panels which I designed. I can’t wait to share it in full with you, but that will have to wait until late September. Luckily I can already share the front cover with you which carries most of – my attempt to achieve – the Blue Note style, here’s a (small) preview of that:
More from the blog:
26
Apr
2012
21
Mar
2012
23
Feb
2012
15
Feb
2012
25
Jan
2012
Nederlands