#frank olinsky

[nicoooooooon]

Duran Duran – ‘Notorious’ cover design (1986)

Design: Frank Olinsky Photography: John Swannell Model: Christy Turlington

[starrybluez]

Duran Duran - 1986

[oblivionrecords]

Cecil Taylor illustration and design by Frank Olinsky, 1974

I’ve been searching for this Cecil Taylor flyer for the 25 years since I misplaced mine. Then, out of nowhere, saxophonist and composer Ras Moshe posted it on his Facebook page.

Why was I so obsessed?

Well, completely aside from the Cecil of it, I love the illustration. To my eyes, rarely do world class illustrators do justice to jazz musicians, especially of the free jazz variety. Many are just trace-overs of famous photographs, giving us very little fresh about the subject.

Frank Olinsky, a great friend* of mine and an Oblivion OG, was the artist. I introduced Frank to Cecil’s manager at the time, David Laura, to design the vinyl LP labels for “Spring of Two Blue-J’s,” and then this flyer.

My formative years in recording happened at Columbia University’s WKCR-FM, the co-sponsor of this concert; it was where David Laura came looking for someone to record Cecil’s Town Hall concert. I was out of the station by then, but one always has a special feeling for home.

When I was putting together the Oblivion release of “The Return Concert” I asked Frank about the flyer. He didn’t have it either, but did some new work to recreate a version that I eventually used on some posters.

And, not for nothing, it was the period in which I was recording Cecil a lot, most memorably The Return Concert at The Town Hall.

I’ve never met Ras, but I owe him a big “thank you!”

* Frank and I grew up together, went to college in New York City in the same era, and did some spectacular work together over the years, most famously with his co-design of the MTV logo with his partners.

[judging-a-album-by-its-cover]

Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness - The Smashing Pumpkins (1995)

Artist : Billy Corgan, Frank Olinsky

[ominous-synths-records]

The Power Station 33 1/3 - The Power Station

Designer - Frank Olinsky

Release - 1985

[fredseibertdotcom]

Click here for my posts about MTV and here for Fred/Alan’s MTV work.

“Anniversaries are for parents!”

It’s hard to say why we thought August 1, 1982, the first birthday of MTV: Music Television, was such a big deal. I was off-the-record in jokingly telling a senior executive that we were rock’n’roll so we probably would be lucky to last five years.

But, we were so excited at actually making the thing work, so exhilirated that we pulled it off, exuberant that the old men cable operators we wrong, we were stunningly popular across the United States (soon the world!).

One way or the other, we wanted to celebrate. Even though the company was still losing a lot of money, everyone was certain we were onto something and soon enough the Benjamins would be rolling in. Given our circumstances though, the company wasn’t going to let us spend just to make ourselves happy, so the solution was to make the birthday all about the cable companies, who we would need for the next 20 years to get big enough to generate all that cash.

MTV 1st Birthday ID from fredseibert on Vimeo.

Manhattan Design (MTV logo originators) came up with the cardboard cable box and t-shirt, and Frank Olinsky illustrated. We even found a few bucks to animate a 10-second cake for the birthday.

“Birthday.” That’s the ticket. As with everything in those early days, the entire MTV team spent a lot of time figuring out our appropriate vocabulary. For everything.

First anniversary? First birthday?

“Anniversaries are for parents. For old people. We’re for kids.”

It was our first birthday.

I’ll point out that last year MTV celebrated it’s 40th birthday! So much for being careful about the brand. Sigh.

.....

Creative directors: Fred Seibert and Alan Goodman Design: Manhattan Design Illustration: Frank Olinsky Animation: Buzzco Associates, New York Thanks to Nancy Kadner Feingold for the cable box and t-shirt

Click here for my posts about MTV and here for Fred/Alan’s MTV work.

[gotloveforsale]

We've been enjoying this book by Frank Olinsky entitled What The Songs Look Like, 1987.

It features visual interpretations of Talking Heads songs by Keith Haring, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Rodney Alan Grenblat, Jenny Holzer, Barbara Kruger, Gary Panter, Ed Ruscha, Robert Rauschenberg, William Wegman, Joost Swarte, and many more!

[oblivionrecords]

2021 update: a few years ago I got the idea that ‘modernizing’ our vintage album graphics for the streaming era could be the right move for our library. All of the information that can be gleaned from global services has made me realize that there’s no difference in the amount of listening you all have done. Modernity is not all it’s cracked up to be, so we’re slowly reverting to the original covers.

That being said, for better or worse, here’s the design assignment and thinking I gave in the first place, for your information.

Fred

.....

Designer: Frank Olinsky, the original art director and illustrator “Blue from the Apple.” 

Assignment: 2014 digital reissues of the entire Oblivion Records 1970s vinyl catalog. 

Considerations: 

• No physical releases on CDs or vinyl. 

• Very few quality visual assets related to the recordings. 

• It's ineffective to shrink the existing LP covers. 

• No budget for significant new asset creation. 

• There's not much musical commonality among the releases...  ...but I'd like a label "identity"... ...a contemporary identity for 40 year old music. 

• Most importantly, the albums need to stand out as simple, tiny thumbnails in digital commerce sites (like Amazon.com) or when played on streaming audio sites (like Spotify). But seen at full size, the cover should display more clearly all the information a listener would expect.  

Based on most of my experiences with graphic designers, there wouldn't be too many people who could balance all of my requests with any finesse or clarity. 

I selected Frank for a variety of good reasons. First and foremost, he's a thoughtful, smart, and resourceful designer. Frank Olinsky solves problems, especially when they're related to music projects. Besides, he's got a history with Oblivion (and me), having designed and illustrated the very sharp cover to our fourth release, Blues from the Apple. 

When we talked about this project Frank pointed me to a digital-only single he'd designed for his longtime client, singer/songwriter Gillian Welch. 'White Rabbit' solved many of the consideration I laid out without even being conscious of them. 

You can see from the comps above he's onto an excellent set of solutions. Each cover refers back to the original vinyl LP, but not slavishly. They've totally got a fresh, series feel without being trendy. And, critically for me, when small they pop, when large they read. 

The purists won't be happy. No photos of bluesmen or recording sessions. Nor are they "retro" in feel. But, they'll be perfect in the new environments they be living and competing in. 

No one's waiting with bated breath for Oblivion digital reissues. But Travis Pomposello and I care, and all the issues sell pretty steadily year after year. There's no reason for our label not to stand up well in the contemporary digital world.

What do you think? Are we on the mark, or should we hide in shame?