Soundscreen Design prepping 7" design book

Seven-inch records are where things begin. For independent labels and bands without cashflow to speak of, it's how sound gets moving from amps to earphones. Which is exactly why they merit acclaim so badly: They've long been the handshake drugs of punk and hardcore scenes, and even eventual powerhouses like Seattle's Sub Pop would be nowhere without a debut 7" like Mudhoney's "Touch Me I'm Sick".

But while all that music talk is well and good, Soundscreen Design Studio is focusing an upcoming book (tentatively titled Touchable Sound: Twenty Years of 7” Record Design) on 7" design, not music. Their pedigree checks out, though: One of their designers, Brian Roettinger, received a recent Grammy nod for art direction on No Age's Nouns. So Soundscreen's unambiguous announcement rings clear and true: "this is NOT about music or nostalgia." 

No, it's about the art that swaddles the sound—and the 7" realm is a good place to focus. It's where designers can let their wild creative juices flow and try out ideas that might never make it through the full-length release process. As Soundscreen puts it, it's all about "records where either the packaging is handmade or you can see the hand of the creators in the work." Just a small picture of this can be seen from Chunklet's Henry Owings, who was called upon for some standout recommendations. His answers are definitely worth perusing, if only because it's not enough just to mention that one record's sleeve served as a wedding's giveaway napkin, while another (Melvins' Tora Tora Tora) was literally bolted together.

Soundscreen isn't the first to cover the topic: Roger Dean published 45 Rpm: A Visual History of the Seven-Inch Record in 2002. But if Dean's book focused on the history of 7" art ranging back to their 1949 beginnings, Soundscreen's focus is on the last 20 years of far-reaching experimentation. And while the data for the Soundscreen project might be getting culled from crate-diggers and record collectors like Owings, who have been keeping track all this while, the whole thing might remind the less knowledgeable of us about some of the superlative work that goes on, too often under our feet.