Ongoing History Daily: An old quirk about album artwork

If you’re into shopping for vinyl, here’s something you might want to look for from the original days of vinyl. The next time you’re browsing through the bins in a record store, note the location of the text on the front cover amongst all the artwork.

It was once conventional wisdom that the name of the band should be placed somewhere in the upper third of the front cover. Some labels even insisted that the name of the band should be in the upper left-hand corner, especially if it was the first album from a brand-new band. Why?

First, because of the way records were displayed in the bins, labels wanted browsers able to identify the act quickly by not having the name below the fold, so to speak. And because we read from left to right, the eye is allegedly automatically drawn to the upper-left-hand corner, thereby immediately giving the prospective buyer the name of the artist.

That might be something to confirm the next time you go record shopping.