love-hate partnership

In Francis Wolff, a photographer and the other Blue Note owner, Reid Miles found a creative partner. He incorporated Wolff’s photos of the actual recording sessions in his covers, sometimes breaking them apart or stacking them. He took time to pick a typeface that resonated with the photos.

Reid Miles wasn’t the type of designer to limit himself to one or two fonts: he could go from Bodoni to News Gothic in a heartbeat. He also wasn’t greedy, and, once in a while, Miles wouldn’t touch a Wolff photo at all: He let it hold the stage. More often than not, however, the two artists would scream at each other and fight for every inch of cover.

 

he never settled into a typeface or system. —felix cromey

Cover by Reid Miles for The Rumproller record by Lee Morgan

Lee Morgan—The Rumproller, 1965.

the scene

Reid Miles’ experimenting with photography was more than just an individual style. It was part of the larger thing happening in the New York design scene at the time.

The interplay of image and type became a recognized approach and was used for regular text, advertising and product packaging. To a large extent, it grew out of the intimate relationship among designers, photographers and artists. Miles occasionally invited Andy Warhol to help with illustrations for Blue Note covers and himself posed nude for a Warhol photo.

Before the corporate intrusion of the late ‘60s forever divided these two worlds, designers and artists coexisted in the same professional space and were practically one. Not сoincidentally, around the same time the original Blue Note Records came to an end. In 1966, the label was sold to giant Liberty Records and Miles moved to L.A. But, for hard bop, the canon had now been set for generations to come by musicians like Art Blakey and Clifford Brown and, of course, by their records’ covers, which still remain the face of the genre.

Cover by Reid Miles for Monk record by Thelonius Monk, co-designed by Reid Miles and Andy Warhol
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14