Samba, Bossa Nova, MPB—Brazil‘s wonderful pop music created an impressive graphical diversity since the beginning of the artistic design of record covers in the fifties. The best examples can easily measure up to those of legendary American jazz labels. Some covers are amusing and others bizarre, many are simply beautiful and not a few are applied art. However, most records are out of print and the graphic artists are largely unknown. Brazilliance is an illustrated book providing a comprehensive compilation of 1,111 record covers of Brazil‘s pop music from 1952 to 1977.
While the printed version is intentionally a picture gallery without explanatory text, this digital version of Brazilliance features selected double-page spreads from the book in articles no. 1–45, supplemented with biographical information about featured artists and examples of their music. The names of the graphic designers are credited whenever detectable.
Brazilliance started in July 2008 as an individual project, intentionally to create a book for a private audience. Only when the master was printed in August 2010, the decision was made to publish the book, but another year went by with careful refinement before the official release in June 2011. Brazilliance is a labour of love to preserve the striking art work that was designed for beautiful music.
My very special thanks go to Moni—in loving memory—for her support, to Horst for his advice, and, of course, to Stefan who just seemed to be my printer in the beginning but turned out to be my publisher at the end.
Andreas Dünnewald
Brazilliance 