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."