Searching for ideas, manipulating connection between concepts, creating relationships between words, pictures, defining new ways to see things… These activities are a large part of the designer work, before any production work. In the same way a developer combines logical blocks, handles variables and conditionnals, the graphic designer orders ideas and visual combinations in an original, efficient and unexpected way.

In the days of digital, of mp3, of ITunes and downloading, the relationship between music and graphic design is getting less and less visible. It still exists, of course, and I presume it finds its future into video or interactivity. But if we have to compare to the visual richness of 50's, 60's, 70's and even the mid 90's, the musical graphic design of today is less rich and creative.
This eveolution not depends only on internet, because the raising of CD, with its more little display surface than vinyl discs, has restrained the graphic design expression surface. More over, some discs contained real edition works with posters, leaflets, allowing the designers and bands to really developp rich and detailed visual universes.
Today's young designers (like me), don't know for the most this interesting past of music design. However, it has create varied and experimental design, through the different music styles. It's in this objective that I introduced in an old article the Storm Thorgerson's work. Today I write this post about another great music designer, Reid Miles, who marked another music style, jazz music.

Found by chance on the web, Skin is a design studio based in Norway. Their works, mostly for print and edition, are very worthy. You'll find in the rest of this article pictures in which photographs have a special treatment and a strong place, often playing with deconstruct typography. Their identity and package design works are very clean too.