AVP Holiday Card – 2007

Artwork by Stephanie Housley from Coral & Tusk

The disk illustrated on the front of this card pays homage to the aesthetic quality of labels seen on commercially released 78RPM disks – also known as shellacs. No other recording medium before or since has exhibited such beautifully crafted decorative labels, making them a significant experiential aspect of working with the medium. UNESCO estimates that there are ten million 78RPM disks worldwide. Fortunately these disks are one of the most resilient formats ever to exist. Their primary physical threat is breakage due to mishandling or disaster. As the main audio medium for mass distribution of content in the first half of the 20th century, content found on these disks is amazingly diverse and relevant to defining the time period in which they thrived. Efforts toward preservation of the content found on these disks continue on as evidenced by the release of a 78RPM calibration disk from the Audio Engineering Society this year!

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