12 x 12 Album Cover Design Exhibition
Ethnic Instrument in Modern Contemporary Music Workshop
June 11, 2018
12 x 12 Album Cover Design Exhibition – Artist Talk
July 3, 2018
Black Box, PHoM.
Free Admission.
With a longstanding career designing album covers, graphic designer Tapa (Mustaffa Ahmad Hidzir) is set to bring us his unique collection of Malaysian album art, spanning recordings from the bygone eras of 12'' by 12'' LP vinyls to the current digital age.
In this exhibition, we will witness the life’s work of a man who rubbed shoulders with the who’s who in the Malaysian music and entertainment. Visitors to the exhibition and his talk will get a rare glimpse of his design process, from conceptualizing an album cover, interpreting a set vision by a client; to his contextual ramblings on a glorious era of the music industry, the changing of market demands and the culmination of studio system through technological innovation. Truly an event not to be missed!
There's also an Artist Talk on Sunday, August 5th, 2018, 3pm with Tapa. See you there!
Mustaffa Ahmad Hidzir (Tapa)
Tapa, who hails from Taiping, believes his journey as an album cover designer started with his mum’s younger brother, Mohd Salleh Hashim, who introduced him to rock music when he was about 10 years old.
When his family had to relocate to Teluk Intan to follow his accountant father’s work requirements, he resisted, and managed to score a place in his school King Edward VII’s hostel in Taiping. The move enabled him to grow roots in a small town, develop sustained friendships and indulge in music, which was acquired from record stores around town and listened to on a turntable … in school!
Upon graduating from Institut Teknologi Mara, armed with a diploma in graphic design in hand, Tapa returned to the EMI record label office he had interned at while researching his final year presentation on album art. There, the head of A&R for the Malay department, Wahab Yusoff and Raymond Hon, the marketing director, eagerly awaited to hire him. Tapa not only became the label’s first album art designer, he was also the first in the country to earn that job description on July 1, 1978.
Two years there allowed him not to only hone his craft, but develop album art from mere artiste profile shots to stylised ones without the artiste. Even after leaving EMI to pursue a career in the advertising industry, EMI still kept him on a retainer basis!
During the course of his career, Tapa has met and worked with some of Malaysia’s most celebrated artistes such as Ramli Sarip, Amy Search, SM Salim, Carefree, Noorkumalasari, the late Datuk Sudirman Haji Arshad amongst many others.
Tapa’s life’s work has been curated in the sprawling and detailed book – “12×12 Album Cover By Tapa”, featuring 120 design works from several generations of Malaysian singers and entertainers, providing a first-hand account of the music business through the eye of a keen observer and participant.