The Errant Æsthete

John Berg truly had “the best possible job at the best possible time.” As art director (and later creative director and vice president) of Columbia/CBS Records from 1961 until 1985, Berg oversaw a golden age of record cover design. From his office in New York’s Midtown he created covers for Dylan, Springsteen and Monk, to name just a few. He commissioned photography from Avedon and illustrations from Glaser and Chwast. He won four Grammys and countless other music and design industry awards. If you’ve ever purchased any popular music from that era, there’s a good chance that it was released by Columbia, and that its visual presentation was in some way conceived by the creative mind of John Berg.

“Joplin commissioned it, and she delivered Cheap Thrills to me personally in the office. There were no changes with R. Crumb. He refused to be paid, saying, ‘I don’t want Columbia’s filthy lucre.’”

---

“Chicago was a unique situation. Jim Guercio, the musical mind behind the band as well as the band’s manager, and I never wanted to show the band on the album covers (with the exception of the greatest hits cover). … If you look carefully, the logo, whether rendered in leather or chocolate, in the form of a map or a bank note, is always the same size and in the same position on the cover.”

---

“Bobby (as we called him) frequently chose the picture he wanted to use on his album covers. … The Jerry Schatzberg cover for Blonde on Blonde is an example of a photo he showed up with. We worked with that picture rather than coming up with a total concept, so the type styles and the cropping became our contributions.”