Joseph Jarman – Song For…
Laini (née Sylvia Abernathy) designed several record covers for Chicago-based Delmark Records in the 1960s. She is one of the few African American women of the period to be credited as a designer.
Read more about Laini in a piece by Florence Fu at Letterform Archive:
Among her album designs, the cover for Joseph Jarman’s Song For… is the most elaborate and typographic, making modern use of antique typefaces, including the Victorian-era Relievo No. 2 (1879) and Windsor Outline (1904). Futura Black and Broadway form a dizzying text frame. Unlike other albums of the time that either take on a cool, mysterious attitude with tinted monochrome photography, or a bouncy, energetic character with kinetic type, Abernathy takes a different approach. By only using contrasting colors of red and green, she produces a vibrating, psychedelic effect where their edges meet — echoed by the optically-ambiguous mirrored portrait in the center.
