My Favorite Things is the seventh studio album by jazz musician John Coltrane, released in March 1961. It was the first album to feature Coltrane playing soprano saxophone, which is prominently displayed on the cover photograph.
The sleeve was designed by Loring Eutemey, now midway through his tenure at Atlantic Records. He selected a bold, narrow Didone – Olympic – to fit four lines of large type comfortably in the empty space of the photo. The colors are as bold as the type. Without an actual record sleeve in front of me, it’s difficult to determine the vibrancy and hue of the blue background and red type on the original design. As you can see here, the colors vary widely in the online reproductions of of the various album issues.
It was many years before the vibrating colors of psychedelia would be in vogue, but I wonder if he selected these tones of red and blue for that purpose. (Loring studied at Cooper Union around the same time as color vibrator Victor Moscoso.)
Or maybe I’m readying too much into it. Either way, it’s a great effect and a great cover.