For some, myself included, the U.K. Sound Design exhibition, held Nov. 23-27 at the Ground in Harajuku, was a stroll down memory lane. Organized by the British Council in Japan, the show assembled record sleeves from seminal British designers of the last 30 years. Seeing many old records that had made their way into my collection, I realized I had been enjoying the illustrations of these designers long before I understood that the sleeves had in fact been "designed." How can we look forward to MP3s when albums give us such great art?

The exhibition, which was affiliated with RESFEST, an international showcase of digital film works, was a wild success. It was co-curated by the groundbreaking graphic design team Designers Republic, Kirsty Dias from the British Council and Elizabeth Farrelly, a writer of books on design.

"It's always difficult to choose just a small selection from British culture over such a time frame," admitted Designers Republic founder Ian Anderson at the opening, "but it's interesting to be involved in representing the interrelationship of sound and vision through record sleeves."

Dias explained that members of Designers Republic designed the exhibition's structure, and then they, with herself and Farrelly, made a list of designers, who chose five of their favorite sleeves.

"I tried to cover the whole spectrum of stories with the designers I chose," Farrelly said. "There were some people who worked with one band, some who worked for a record company, some were friends of the band, some were done by designers commissioned by record companies and so on. I tried to cover all the different kinds of connections like that."

Roger Dean's sleeves demonstrate the progression of his "Yes" album covers and how those changed over the years, going from tight pencil drawings to expansive painterly canvases.

"The underlying attitude to all the 'Yes' covers is that he created a world, a sort of fantasy world of the band," Farrelly explained, "He became totally central to the band, doing everything for them -- from the logo, covers, stage sets, T-shirts and so on. This had never been done for a band before. In fact, they were the first band to do their own merchandising, which in the early 1970s was fairly new."

Most of the early sleeves were one-offs, usually done by artists who worked for the band, such as Peter Blake for the Beatles' "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band" or Michael English for the Rolling Stones' "Their Satanic Majesty's Request." Farrelly pointed out that these artists had huge amounts of money thrown at them, "and we didn't really consider that to be record-sleeve design, more of an anomaly that kickstarted the whole genre."

The exhibition follows a chronological trail ranging from the DIY positive aggression of punk in Jamie Reid's Sex Pistols covers to the highly finessed spartan design of Mike Farrow covers for Spirtualized and Music Masters.

Images and music have always been tied together, so it was more than appropriate to link RESFEST with Sound Design. The British Council copresented a day of screenings and talks featuring Designers Republic, Shots Magazine's selection of U.K. ads and music videos, and a special appearance by Underworld's Karl Hyde.

Anderson gave one of the most informative and humorous seminars on design and sound, and expertly fielded the occasional inane question like "What is Designers Republic's office routine like?" (Anderson said they get to work about 11, loll around chatting about the night before -- what parties they went to, who shagged who -- then about 12 they have lunch . . . but then admitted that they really work all night to meet deadlines).

This was followed by a chat by Underworld's Hyde on the symbiotic relationship his group has with Tomato, the designers' collective that hit the big time with their startling movie credits for "Trainspotting." Tomato's organizational structure and graphic work is considered trailblazing and they have given workshops in Tokyo to disseminate their accumulated wisdom. Look for another series and an exhibition (at Laforet) in March.