The Style of Graphic Design as a Reflection of Humanity ---A
case study on the early Taiwan Popular Music Album Design from
1954 to1971
Li-Min CHEN*, Man-Lai YOU**
* National Kaohsiung Normal University, Taiwan, [email protected]
** National Yunlin University of Science and Technology, Taiwan , [email protected]
Abstract:
Like popular music, popular album design reflects the popular culture of the society, combines people’s tastes and
appreciation for the popular culture, and symbolizes the background of a certain period and value.
Popular album
design is a type of Graphic Design. It not only needs printing and mass production but also includes graphic design
such as Typography, Layout, Illustration, and Image. Album and its design not only represent music, but also gives
us another type of room for imagination.
In other words, albums are tools which reproduce musical
content and
album design also is the bridge between the tools and media.
The mainly ideas for conducting research on the period from 1954 to 1971 because there are two turning points in
Taiwanese record industry during this date.
The goal of this paper is to investigate (1) the transition from the first
Taiwan-made album to the raise of local music industries, doing away with the import of albums (1954-1961) and (2)
process of the prosperity of the music industry to the export to South-East Asia (1962-1971). By taking literature
analyses and album covers as research samples, we examine the development of Taiwanese post-war music industry
and social background from a macro view. Moreover, we tried to recover the phenomenon reflected by popular
album design at that time by inferring from the analogy with the world’s design tendency.
This paper is arranged as
follows: 1. Introduction, 2. Method, 3. Results and discussions, and 4. Conclusions.
Key words: Graphic Design, Album Design
1. Introduction
1.1Research Topic
This research mainly discusses correlations between album cover designs in Taiwan at the early stage during
1954 to 1971 and its respectively social status quo, among which the stage is divided into two periods.
(1) the period between 1954-1961, and (2) the period between 1962-1971.
They are:
The former is characterized with
beginning of the “indigenous” pop music albums and the growth of local music industries, featuring its roles from
importing albums to making albums.
The later is characterized with the rapid development of Taiwan music
industries, which show its capability of exporting albums to Southeast Asia.
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1.2 Data Collection
Data samples of this research were offered by Mr. Lin, Lian-Tse in Taichuang City and Mr. Wang, Min-San in
Taichuang County. Mr. Lin’s album collection provided samples of pop music at the periods of postwar and the
early stage of Taiwan restoration (1945 – 1961).
Through his introduction, another collection from I-Lan
Traditional Arts Center also helped provide samples of album covers. As for Mr. Wang’s collection, his samples
comprised the major data sources of this research and because of his renovated albums, his samples helped enrich
the data content of the research sampling. Although many album companies in Taiwan adapted the standardized
layout of the album cover design at the early stage without too many varieties, it is still hoped that broadening of
sample collection and retrieving samples from different sources could help restore the varieties of the album cover
design at that time.
2. Method
“Album” itself is one of the fine arts—music and the consuming product as well. Design of the album cover
is the combination of bridging them together.
In terms of the sequences of album production and album release,
it generally comes with music first, then album, and next the design of the album cover.
Therefore, if we like to
know the ideas behind the design of album cover, it is not enough to interpret them from the visual layouts and
graphic designs on the cover.
Philips Meggs (1996, pp.89 – 93), the author of “ A History of Graphic Design”
ever indicated that research of the history of graphic design should be discussed from diachronic and synchronic
perspectives. A diachronic perspective helps observe the changes of linking stages over the time factor while a
synchronic perspective helps compare the differences of the social status quo and the world design trend at that
specific time.
Therefore, besides discussion on fundamental perspectives from the diachronic and synchronic developments
of the cover design of the album at different stages, studies of the cover design of the albums with emphases on
design context and stylistic analysis are also explored.
Main discussion contents are listed as following: (1)
Internal context – analysis of the text content on the album design; (2) External context – interaction between
merchandise consuming and music industries; and (3) Original context – cover design of albums, musical content,
and social issues quo.(Barrett, 2000)
Through the analysis of the materials mentioned above and the album
covers of the collected samples, an observation of the development of the cover designs has been made and
following question raised: “Has the design context been changed as the times changed?”
“Continued above
question, which changes have been shown in terms of performing ways of music or/and the content of the music?”
“What were other factors that affected such changes?”
These three questions helped review the phenomenon of
the cover design of Taiwan pop music and helped cross-analyze the social changes of its concurrent status quo.
Observe the design manner in the context of the whole politics, economy, culture, and society in the past
Taiwan in order to portray how the graphic design of popular music album is presented and reflects then
conditions through visual design
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3. Results and Discussions
The result and the discussion are divided intro three parts: 3-1. Internal Context --- case study on the analysis
of the album design. 3-2. External Context ---the interaction relation between merchandise consuming and album
industries. 3-3. Original Context --- the relations between the album design, the musical content, and the social
issues.
3-1. Internal Context--- case study on the analysis of the album design
Due to the enormous amount of the study samples (267), there are two criteria for selecting the representative
works.
As the size of the sample is too big, the sampling of case study and context analysis will be done in the
following way, for example, (1) the stereotype of design such as Form, Medium, or Subject Matter. (2) the better
or more particular works, the designs of which are special in some way.
3-1.1 Case Study and Context analysis---the raising of Taiwanese local music industry (1954-1961)
1.Style of design: (figure 1-3)
Early album cover designs in Taiwan were like those in other countries. There was no formal cover or
cover design. Albums were wrapped in “sleeves or jackets”.
They usually symbolized publications by some
record companies ,and the main resort was the name of the company too.
The contents of the album were shown
on the circle in the center of the sleeve. On the circle, there were the singer, player and titles of the songs, date of
publication, and the logo of the company.
mainly in square.
Because the record was in the shape of a circle, the cover design was
Because of the emptiness in the center of the sleeve, some designs were in intersections or
radiations. Costumers could see the titles of the songs from the emptiness.
The way of presentation and the
style of design were reflections of those in the period of Japanese's ruling, using simple geometry and hand-drawn
characters, images and texts.
And also, there were used to have couple different type of sleeves or jackets in their own.
We can say that
the costumers could easily to memorize and catch what company was at that time, but on the other hand that those
design were lacking creativity and so called good sense of design. As matter of fact, Cover designs were not
emphasized at that time.
The mainly concept of album design is focused on “merchandise packaging” rather
than “package design or cover design”. Meanwhile, album designs were limited by techniques of photography
and printing equipment.
2.Material and Media:
During this period, the material used for records were 78 rpm shellac disc for gramophones.
1950 did vinyl SP and LP come out.
time.
Not until late
Radio broadcasting system was the major medium for playing music at that
Taiwan was then at an industrial turning point and the production of albums depended mainly on pirating
or reproducing foreign albums.
Not only could reduce the record company’s budget , but also increase the music
consumers at the same time.
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Fig1
Fig2
Fig3
mid 1950s
mid 1950s
late 1950s
3-1.2. Case Study and Context Analysis --- the popularization of 33 1/3 LP records (1962-1971)
The main reason that album designs in this period were different from those in previous period lies in that
fact that record companies gradually turned to produce records on their own. Apart from some famous singers’
records and some album series, album cover design was no longer representative for the companies only, but each
album started to have its own cover design.
1.Style of design:
A. The works in figure 4,5,6 were early works, hand-drawn images with the black-and-white picture of the singer.
The whole design has transferred from simple geometry and hand-drawn pictures to combinations of text layout
and images.(early 1960s)
B. The style of the work in figure 7 was one of the specialties in this period, especially after mid 1960s. In
1960s, the economy of Taiwan started to grow.
culture.
Entertaining movies and music listening were two major popular
The album cover designs combined advertising with movies.
Therefore, combinations of plots and
staged shots of the movies were straightly used for album designs.
C. Figure s 8 and 9 were the representative works for album series, representative works for this period also.
The photographic portraiture in figure 8 was not only influenced by the improving of photography and photo
collaged but also highly affected by “Stars Shining Concert”, one of the programs produced by the first TV
company (Taiwan Television TTV).
music and images of singers.
Different from listening to music from the radio, this program combined
As a result, people began to show interest in the singers they liked.
to collect albums to get closer to the stars.
They started
Therefore, cover designs tended to focus on the face of the singer or
his/her performing on stage.
D. The works in figure10,11,12 were designed by Mr. Jian, Xigui, who graduated from Fine Art Department of
NTNU(National Taiwan Normal University).
He is a typical example of combining fine art to graphic design.
Since he has background of Fine Art and experience of serving in a advertising company, his works were very
valuable at that time, compared with contemporary cover designs; album cover design was not his main career,
tough.
He said himself that these works were under the influence of Pop Art. Therefore, he used pure and
saturate colors to combine with hand-drawn pictures and text for layout very often. (1)
4
Lin, Pin-chang and Liu, Te-wei 《The Study of the Design of LP Sleeves in the 1960s》 was published in
Design Journal, Taiwan, volume Three, No 1.
In 1960s, the graphic design of albums was not as various as today.
Cover design was the only tool used to get consumers’ interest. At that time, human resource was shortening and
printing technique was poor.
Therefore, a good graphic design was enough to arouse people resonance and then
enhance their desire to buy the albums.
2. Material and Media:
In this period, the main way of album broadcasting was through radios and TV. The album companies started
to sign contracts with singers and began to produce and publish albums by themselves.
The albums turned from
the original SP 45 transfers to LP 331/3 transfers; in other words, the playing time of albums enlarged.
LP records changed from 8 inches to 12.5 inches.
It not only enlarged the playing time, but also the size of
album covers enlarged which means more emphasized the importance of cover design.
Fig4
Fig5
early 1960s
early 1960s
Fig7
Fig8
late 1960s
mid 1960s
Fig10
Fig11
late 1960s
late 1960s
In 1967,
Fig6
1961-1964
Fig9
mid 1960s
Fig12
late 1960s
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3-2 External Context--- the interaction relation between merchandise consuming and album industries
This part shows the interaction relation according to the time and space context.
We analyze how the album
covers were made, published and sold from the history of the development of the whole pop music industries in
Taiwan.
It also analyzes how the popular music record changed from a luxury of the only rich minority to the
daily necessity of the poor majority, and how commodity consumption and record industry interacted at that time.
In《The Journey of Taiwan Record, Taipei Taiwan》and《Taipei Literature》, Yeh, Long-Yen divided the history
of Taiwan album development into six stages, which were stated as below:
1. The album development in Japan empire. 2. The period of album importing (1945-1954). 3. The rise of local
album industries (1954-1961). 4. The rich of LP 33and 1/3 records (1962-1971). 5. The golden stage of Taiwan
album industries. 6. The internationalization of Taiwan albums (1981-1999).
From Japan's domination to 1954, Taiwan had no concrete development of album industries. Early in 1920,
Japanese had already imported album commerce and established record companies (Yeh, 2002).
Before that
time, all record relied on import and mostly came form Hong Kong, Mainland China, Japan, England and U.S.A..
In the book 《The Social Issues of Taiwan’s Popular Music》, Tseng , Hui-Chia (1998) define the period of 1954 to
1971:
1.From 1950 to 1960 was the phase of "reproduction of albums and OEM":
Although there were some small album manufactories, the quality of the albums made from shellac was not
good, and they were fragile. Besides, the recording equipment was not prevailing on the market. Therefore, many
companies reproduced albums imported form foreign countries through OEM, and people appreciated songs
mainly by listening to the radio.
Moreover, from then on, there were a few household factories that produced
albums album production, such as "Li Ge", "Asia", "Queen", and "Ming Feng" factories.
reproduced the imported foreign albums.
They primarily
They obtained the original tapes from Hong Kong and foreign
countries and reproduced these albums in Taiwan.
However, an album could be recorded only for three minutes,
and not many people had record players then. (Tseng, 1998)
2. From 1960 to 1970 was the phase of self-manufacturing and production:
After 1960, Hong Kong became the center where Shanghai celebrities would go when they left Mainland
China. A large number of movie stars, singers, directors, and music composers would concentrate in Hong
Kong. Album companies in Taiwan also invited plenty of Hong Kong and Shanghai singers to cut phonograph
records.
Thus, during the early period of 1960, the pop music of Taiwan became the "modern music" that was
widespread throughout Hong Kong and Shanghai. At that time, the compositions of Taiwanese celebrities and
the reproduction of Japanese albums were very prevalent in addition to the current Taiwanese movies. (Tseng,
1998)
There were very complete radio broadcasting systems in Taiwan at the Japan dominating time; therefore,
from 1945 to 1961, most people enjoy the show by the broadcasting or singers’ outdoor performance.
The
Taiwan TV Company established in 1962 broadcasted pop music through the TV program ‘Star Shining Concert’
and the business of albums was growing with it.
The owner of the record company ‘Sea and Mountain’, Mr.
Cheng ,Chen-kun, exhibited the Taiwanese Pop albums when the commercial exhibition visited the Southeast Asia.
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Besides showing the pop music of Taiwan, he also widened the oversea album market of Taiwan album companies
at the same time.
Taiwan’s singers performed in the area of southeast and moreover, the oversea market
overwhelmed Taiwan’s market. The southeastern Asia became the main market of Taiwan’s album business and
the export of albums reached the number of eighty thousand at most in a year (Tseng, 1988).
In 1967, the
manufacturing of Taiwan album business turned from Slowing Playing to Longer Playing, and it made the volume
of albums enlarged a lot. Undoubtedly, it meant much benefit for the businessmen of albums and the customers.
At the late 1960s, Taiwan’s album business gradually had maturing production and marketing management.
situation also brought the development of album industry.
This
Continuously, from the 1970s, Taiwan’s album
industry entered the mature period of business administration.
3-3.Original Context---the relations between the album design, the musical content, and the social issues
From the social transformation of Taiwan at that time, we observe the style shift of the whole politics,
economics, culture, society, and design that contrast to how to reflect the condition at that time through the
graphic design based on the album covers design, we try to recover the original designing concept and symbolic
idea of album covers design.
Historical background
3-3.1.
1954-1961
In this period, Taiwan had not entered the industrial and commercial society. Although Taiwan had escaped
the colonial domination of Japan, the following “228 conflict tragedy” in 1947 and the retreat of KMT
government to Taiwan in 1949, there were about one and half million soldiers and people immigrated to Taiwan
(Taiwan; Half Century after Postwar, 1995).
At the same year, U.S government announced ‘the order of
abolishment’ Taiwan and the explosion of Korea war was made U.S. to defend Taiwan again.
influenced Taiwan to form a politically and socially ‘white terror’.
It indirectly
These factors directly influenced the making
and manufacturing of pop music albums, especially the context of the lyrics.
In this period, although Taiwan’s
album companies largely translated and re-sang Japanese songs for the reason of saving, the government
demanded radio stations to destroy the pop music album that were left over at the time of Japanese domination.
In this period, facing the need of integrating of different ethic groups, Chinese pop music also immigrated into
Taiwan with the China immigrating trend in 1949.
It launched a lot in Taiwan pop music, and enriched the
musical context of Taiwan pop music at the same time. In this period, Taiwan’s pop music mostly succeeded the
singing styles of Shanghai and Hong-Kong.
The artistic design which also belonged to the daily consuming did
not develop very well in this time.
According to Lin’s《The Inspiration of Taiwanese Graphic Design from 1945 to the late 1950s》1996, and
《The Origins of Taiwanese Graphic Design》1995, he pointed out:
Strictly speaking, graphic design is the product of social commercial development.
From the recover of
Taiwan to the late 1940s, because of the Taiwan’s society being in the life style of agriculture, many industries
were in the stage of recovery.
In this time, because the few competition of industrial and commercial companies,
the developmental space of graphic design was limited.
Therefore, the profession and status of graphic
designers were not formed and the concept of design was not established, either.
period of Inspiration.”.
7
Therefore, we could call it “the
However, at this time, the album design showed a whole blank because the making of albums was mainly
based on pirate records or reproducing imported records.
Record companies did not invest too much in the
design of cover design; therefore, the graphic design of Taiwan was still at the stage of the inspiration period.
3-3.2.
1961-1971
Taiwan began to accept the reinforce of U.S.A. in 1950s, in addition to the rich outcome of efforts of the
whole people, Taiwan’s economy and industries developed a lot. At the same time, it was the most stable period
of products after the post war.
In 1963, it was the first time that Taiwan had the over-export. On the structure of
economic industry, the original agricultural development plus export substitute industry transformed to the
direction of processing industry.
In 1961, the following established TTV and CTV launched a new effort into the
entertainment industry, and formed the development of album industry.
The graphic design of Taiwan started to be stimulated by the economic development and the setting of
processing industry zones.
promoted.
Besides the stability of politics and economy, the need of daily products also
On the contrary, the graphic design gradually speeded up to get up with the track of the designing
trend in the world.
In this period, the graphic design developed its own style, for instance , the most famous
examples were the influence of ‘Black and White Show’ and Jian’s album design for the ‘Lucky Record
Company’.
Besides, the renewal of designing material and perfection of printing skills also directly influenced
the showing of the design of album covers.
Lin’s 《The Taiwanese Graphic Design in the 1960s》1997 pointed out
“In 1959, the East Ad. Company established, it not only meant the growing of the Ad. business but also
demonstrated that the development of Taiwan’s industry and business had had the base of large selling.
period could be called the "embryo" of graphic design.
This
As concerns the presentation of graphic design, the idea
of "design" was established gradually because the relevant design activities had been in progress prevalently.
Things including posters, illustration, packages, advertisements, and so forth were obviously different from those
in the previous period (i.e. 1950s).
The introducing of the concept of contemporary
designers have rich creative performance.
western art made
Works from such idea could be seen as a kind of avant-garde creation,
and they were the greatest characteristic in this period.
In this period, the album design actually represented ongoing condition. On the designing representation,
graphic design of Taiwan had entered the time of growing. Record companies turned to produce and publish by
themselves, and the album design was not only an record company cover anymore.
On the contrary, every
album had its individual cover design, and record companies started to make sense of the strategy to get marketing
by graphic design.
This kind of situation was more clear in the late 1960s because the Taiwan record industries
had turned to business administration and exported to Southeast Asia.
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4. Conclusions
4-1 The reflection between Taiwan’s album design and world design trend
The domain of this study was from 1954 to 1971, and it was very clear that Taiwan Pop music album design
did not get up with the track of world design trend. For example, neither the Taiwan’s album design in 1950s
had any connection with the “International Style” , nor the latter on 1960s.
Due to the Martical Law in politics
and the limited information , the status of graphic design was not quite important at that time.
4-1.1
1954-1960
From 1954 to 1961, Taiwan came to the rising period of local album industries. In this period, albums
mostly relied on the import from foreign countries.
The original albums from foreign countries were
re-produced in Taiwan. Moreover, the major source of album design on the Japan’s domination had highly
influenced on early Taiwan’s album design.
Therefore, the early Taiwan album cover design in 1950s still stayed
on the Japan-dominating stage of ‘Russian Constructivism, and The Stijl”; for example, figure 1,2,3,and 6.
4-1.1
1961-1971
Besides, from 1961 to 1971, the economy growing of Taiwan had entered the stage of business over-export
and processing industries, and also enhanced the development of design.
However, it was still under the control
of Martial Law and speaking limitation (Wong, 2001), and we also lacked the information about the trend of
contemporary design. As a whole, although Taiwan’s album cover design couldn’t get up with the track of
current world design, but there were still good compositions for us to review and further study.
Jian’s work on Lucky Record (fig 10,11,12) in 1960s was a good one.
For instance,
His works could be a good example to
explain how the western current International Style shift to the mass culture of Pop Art and Optical Art.
4.2 To review the context of society from the design of the album design---the lack of subjective style of
design
Since there was the lack of the development of "subjectivity" in the early record industry in Taiwan, the style
of design was deficient in contemplation as well.
It could not exactly reflect the context of society in Taiwan.
But, why did the graphic design stay at the stages of growing and exploring in 1950s?
Besides the reason that
Taiwan had their own independent record industry until 1960s, were there other possible factors?
From the
developing of Taiwan pop music, we could clearly see the social background and history contexts of Taiwan.
The lyrics of pop music were just like literature. Although it was a sort of abstract art, the representing materials
were not limited by any constraint and limitation.
On the contrary, in this period, the album cover design always
stayed at the last status of album industries’ producing procedures.
It not only got impression by the producers at
that time, but also was limited by the media materials and printing skills.
By comparing to 1950s, album design on 1960s had been gradually matured and achieved concrete sense of
ideas.
Not only was its just a part of developing in graphic design, but also represent the progressing of Taiwan’s
economics and society.
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If all we had believed that graphic design have to had the insight of “subjective style of design”, we could
clearly review the social issues on the past Taiwan’s popular music culture through album design.
Then, the
developing of these Taiwan’s album design from 1954 to 1971 will be an endeavor of turning point before the new
eras coming next on the 1970s.
Acknowledgment
The authors would like to thank for the NSC, Taiwan supporting, and also appreciated Mr. Lin and Mr. Wang
kindly offered their album collection for reference in this study.
Note
1. Lin, Pin-Chang and Liu, Te-Wei 《The Study of the Design of LP Sleeves in the 1960s》 was published in
Design Journal, Taiwan, volume Three, No 1.
Mr. Jian, Xigui was interviewed by Lin and Liu for commanding
his idea of design.
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