The World Record Club

This background is from the book “The World Record Club” by Geoff Hocking 2009, which you may be able to find online, or direct from its author here:

The World Record Club began in Britain in 1958. It established its Australian counterpart 2 years later with its own cover art design studio., first at 330 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, and later on Burwood Road in the Melbourne suburb of Harwell. the studio was to become one of the most influential, as it was one of the first of all independent graphic design studios in Australia, producing in excess of 3000 new designs for the covers of mostly classical recordings, until it was taken over by EMI in 1975.

With an alumni of designers, illustrators and photographers, both staff artists and freelancers, that number among them some of the leading names in Australian graphic design and illustration, the studio at Word Record stood like a beacon for creative, often esoteric, design in a market otherwise dominated by commercialism.

 In retrospect, the best years were the early years. In almost every case the company was keen to break new ground, to create exciting covers, and covers that always said, ‘World Record Club’. That style was unmistakable — clever graphics, great illustrations, spare typography and limited colour — World Record Club covers looked like no other and won all the awards for that very reason.