Interview with 2023 Grammy winner Dave Van Patten on the award-winning work for Rhino Records for the Grateful Dead

ACHOF’s Mike Goldstein’s interview with artist and illustrator Dave Van Patten on his 2023 Grammy Award-winning (for “Best Boxed Or Special Limited Edition Package”) work for Rhino Records on the IN AND OUT OF THE GARDEN: MADISON SQUARE GARDEN ’81 ’82 ’83! package for the Grateful Dead.

Mike G’s screen grab of artist Dave Van Patten, with his co-winners Lisa Glines and Doran Tyson at the 2023 Grammy Awards ceremony

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Posted May 11, 2023

Each year, I look forward to learning more about the talented people who bring their abilities to clients in the music industry, because each year I realize that there are many artists, from all different backgrounds and disciplines, who are asked to contribute to album package projects of all sizes and styles. The past few years, while serving as a judge for some of the better-known packaging awards, I get to see the results of efforts to produce packages that, at least to me, run the gamut from pedestrian (AKA “cookie cutter”) to truly inspired and everything in between. I’m typically most-impressed by artists and design teams that, rather than take the simple path (particularly on projects for clients with a well-establish design guide), try something new and exciting, even at the risk of ticking off the purists who will accept nothing but the status quo.

I personally experienced the wrath of fans for a particular anime series that the company I was working for adapted for an American audience, even BEFORE we showed any of it to the public (“don’t you DARE touch this or change that, or you’ll be sorry” was the typical threat), so when I learned more about how the team behind this year’s Grammy-winning package in the “Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package” category approached the project for their client – i.e., the Grateful Dead, the band with perhaps the most-integrated fan base in the music business – and made the decision to introduce some new graphics to the package, my first reaction was “I wonder if they felt the need to take alternate routes to the office for a while?” (perhaps that was a bit dramatic, but I’m damaged goods). Of course, I also wanted to know more about the coordinated effort to produce such an impressive package, so I took my questions to one of the people responsible for this year’s award-winning project – artist Dave Van Patten – to see what he could do to both illuminate the details of the creative/production effort and also show me proof that he’d survived (and in fact, been fortified by) the reactions of Dead fans to the set he’d help put together.

ACHOF Breaking News Update – 2023 Grammy Awards Winners

ACHOF BREAKING NEWS UPDATE for February 5, 2023 – posted by Mike Goldstein

The 2023 Grammy show – the 65^th annual show, just 10 months after the COVID-delayed 2022 Award Show and taking into account music/packages that were released between the first of October, 2021 and the last day September, 2022 – took place at the Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles, CA on Sunday, February 5th, 2023.The Grammy Award Winners in the Packaging Categories were announced earlier today during the web-cast Grammy Awards “Premiere Ceremony”, and I’m now pleased to share the info on who the winners were below:

2023 Screen Image for “Best Recording Package” category

Announcing the Winners of the 2022 ACHOF Reader’s Poll

posted November 22, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, Album Cover Hall of Fame.com

For the past 10 years, the contributors to the Album Cover Hall of Fame have worked to recognize and promote the talents of the people who’ve brought music fans and art collectors (and those of us that appreciate both activities) the best in retail and online music packaging, design, graphics and photography.

Helped each year by asking a panel of curators, gallerists, music marketing execs and writers/researchers who cover the topic to register their opinions, I’ve been able to deliver these details to my readers and, once a year in November, present the top vote-getters in our annual poll as inductees into the hallowed (virtual) halls of the ACHOF. What I haven’t been able to do until now is ask this site’s visitors and fans about their favorite album art-makers, and so to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the first class of inductees into the ACHOF, I asked you all to participate in a poll that would serve to track and the report on your feelings about who of our past inductees deserved special commendation.

This year’s poll allowed you to look over the past winners in each of the active award categories and then asked you to select those who are your most-admired art directors, illustrators, designers and photographers, with the top vote-getters placed in special categories that will be called…well, what will we call them? We don’t want to call them “the best”, nor do we want to repurpose some of the popular names that the awards industry has used over time – “People’s Choice”, “Fan Favorites”, “Vox Populi”, “Diamond/Platinum/Gold Medal Winning”, etc. A quick trip to the thesaurus presents words and phrases like “title holder”, “prize winner” and “top dog”, among others, along with some that I think are a bit over the top, such as “conquering hero”, “vanquisher” and “numero uno”, so while I know that it had to have been something memorable and appropriate, I don’t think we’re quite ready to commit to anything beyond “Top Vote-Getters”.

ACHOF Interview with Grammy-winning art director Darren Evans about the All Things Must Pass 50th Anniversary Album Package

All Things Must Pass “Uber Deluxe Edition” Box Set

ACHOF’s Mike Goldstein interviews Grammy-winning art director Darren Evans about the All Things Must Pass 50^th Anniversary Album Package for George Harrison – Darren Evans, Dhani & Olivia Harrison, Art Directors – winners of the Grammy Award “Best Boxed or Limited-Edition Package” at the 64th Annual Grammy Awards show (2022).

Posted August 26, 2022 by Mike Goldstein

Throughout each year, the many members of the professional organizations related to the entertainment industry gather together to review the work product of their peers (or, in the case of several prominent media organizations, projects done by those they track and report on), select the best examples of that work and then honor those who produced and/or performed those works with awards that symbolize these achievements. Some awards are quite niche-oriented, perhaps representing a great example of creativity in a particular aspect of the work produced (like a product manufacturer’s award for best use their products), while others are much broader in scope and meant to bring a sense of great accomplishment, value and joy to both the winners and their fans. In the recorded music business here in the U.S., some of the most-coveted and highly-valued awards are those handed out by the Recording Academy, AKA “the Grammy organization”, with Grammy Awards handed out each year in dozens of categories, including three in the “Packaging” category.

ACHOF BREAKING NEWS for April 3, 2022 – Grammy Awards Update

ACHOF BREAKING NEWS UPDATE for April 3, 2022 – posted by Mike Goldstein

The Grammy Award Winners in the Packaging Categories were announced today during the web-cast Grammy Awards “Premiere Ceremony”, and I’m now pleased to share the info on who the winners were below:

In the “Best Recording Package” category, the nominees were:

American Jackpot / American Girls for Reckless Kelly – Sarah Dodds & Shauna Dodds, art directors:

Carnage by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis – Nick Cave & Tom Hingston, art directors;

2nd Generation Falangao Singing Group & The Chairman Crossover Big Band’s Pakelang – Li Jheng Han & Yu, Wei, art directors;

Serpentine Prison by Matt Berninger – Dayle Doyle, art director, and

Zeta by Soul Of Ears – Xiao Qing Yang, art director

and the winner was 2nd Generation Falangao Singing Group & The Chairman Crossover Big Band – Pakelang – Li Jheng Han & Yu Wei, art directors

Album Cover Hall of Fame Breaking News for March 15, 2022 – Award Show Update

The winners of the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards have been announced, and they are…

Posted March 15, 2022 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

After a several-month-long organizing, reviewing and voting process, the folks behind the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards have just announced the winners of the most-recent competition and, as both a participant in the process and as a fan of great work in the field of record packaging, I have to say that this year’s list (in the 15 categories represented) is an impressive and inspirational one. What’s all the more enjoyable to see is that musical acts and record labels both large and small have been included in the ”Best X” selections and that art producers both famed and up-and-coming will have their works admired by fans all over the world.

I’m going to highlight just a few of the winners here and then invite you all to click on over to a page on the Making Vinyl Packaging Awards site where you’ll find the complete list and all of the details on the winning designs – https://pro.evalato.com/3875/submissions?round_id=5257

Announcing the 2021 Inductees into the Album Cover Hall of Fame

posted November 26, 2021 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Announcing the 2021 Inductees into the Album Cover Hall of Fame

Chicago, IL-based organization celebrates its 10^th Anniversary with the announcement of its latest class of honorees in the 6 major categories – as voted on by a world-wide panel of music, art and marketing experts in the area of album cover art & packaging – which represents a “who’s who” of creative and production talent, including many recognized names of craftspeople working in the worlds of
fine art, graphic design and photography.

Since officially launching the site in 2012, we’ve previously enshrined nine classes of Inductees based on the results from the group’s yearly surveys, with the voting panel considering the creative output of all producers active any time since 1960. Dozens of additional biographies were added for consideration by the esteemed panel of writers, curators of galleries (retail and online) that focus on album cover imagery, art/design museum curators and music marketing experts.

Interview with Annie Stoll and Meghan Foley on the making of Squeeze Box for Weird Al Yankovic

Interview with Annie Stoll and Meghan Foley on the making of the Grammy-winning package for Weird Al Yankovic’s Squeeze Box box set

Squeeze Box by Weird Al Yankovic

By Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

Posted July 28, 2021

For the past several years, I’ve served on the judging panel for the revitalized Making Vinyl Awards competition and, as part of that effort, I’ve had the chance to review hundreds of different entries in the various categories up for MVA consideration – a truly eyeball-testing experience. While I must admit that, after a while, I found myself glossing over a number of the entries (corrected, luckily, by coming back to the viewings after much rest and a commitment to limiting each session to about an hour’s time), there were a number of entries – particularly, in the box set-related categories – that were so ingeniously done that I knew that they’d be hits with both the other judges and the buying public. Back in early 2019, one of those nominees was a package put together by Sony Music built around the 40+ year output of the seemingly never-aging musical satirist “Weird Al” Yankovic and called, quite appropriately due to the accordion-focused nature of many of Weird Al’s performances, Squeeze Box.

Interview with Lawrence Azerrad about his Grammy Award-winning vinyl package for Wilco’s Ode To Joy

Wilco’s Ode To Joy Special-Edition Vinyl Package

By Mike Goldstein, Album Cover Hall of Fame.com

Posted May 28, 2021 – It’s called “Album Cover Art”, so what I take from that name is that it is something created by artists (artisans?) who create the products we see by hand, using their innate talents and abilities to deliver something unique and appealing (and, in the case of product packaging, something that sells and makes the people that buy these products happy with their purchases). In the case of box sets and limited-edition “special” packages, it’s all the more important that the artists/artisans working on those products “get it right”, as the products are typically more expensive, as collectibles are expected to be, so the value proposition (OMG – I’m back in Marketing!) has to appeal to fans who are being asked to spend (often, many) hundreds of dollars on a product that there may only be a few hundred copies made. Additionally, the designers of these products have to be sure that their client(s) is/are ultimately happy, since the packages are typically the latest/best expressions of their music or, even more often lately, career retrospectives that are attempting to put the totality of the featured musical acts’ musical and lyrical (and, in most cases, visual) output out in a comprehensive package. To do that well, there must be an effective collaboration between the design teams and their clients, with the best examples of those successful collaborations garnering positive critical/fan reviews and, in special cases, special recognition from their industry peers, such as the Grammy Awards that were handed out earlier this year to musician Jeff Tweedy and designer/art director Lawrence Azerrad for Wilco’s Ode To Joy limited-edition set that they produced and released in late 2019 on the dBpm label.

ACHOF Breaking News – Here Are The Winners of the 2020 Grammy Awards for Packaging

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted 3/14/21 by Mike Goldstein, AlbumCoverHallofFame.com

2020 Grammy Awards special update – Having been delayed until today due to precautions taken because of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Grammy Awards in the Packaging category were presented during the GRAMMY Awards Premiere Ceremony® that took place today beginning at 12:00 p.m. PT (3:00 p.m. EST) and streamed live internationally via GRAMMY.com. Preceding the 63rd Annual GRAMMY Awards® telecast tonight, the Premiere Ceremony have been hosted by current three-time nominee Jhené Aiko and feature a number of performances by current GRAMMY nominees.

And now, here are the details of the winners in each of the three Packaging categories: