How I Designed Lou Reed's "Berlin" Album Cover - Ernie's Corner

Award-winning creative designer, Ernie Cefalu has been sharing about the unique and distinct album covers that he has designed. Ernie Cefalu shares stories about so many exciting times working and designing some of the most creative album covers - this time he talks about Lou Reed. Here is the video portion of our chat that adds so many interesting additions to his time with one of rock and roll's most hard working and exciting duos.

You can listen to "The Block Party" and "Ernie's Corner" in Bel Air, Maryland on 91.1 FM (WHFC) and we reach out to you on the net at www.whfc911.org. You can also hear us on Q101.3 (WQMR) in Rocky Mount, VA at 8 p.m.. Meet you on the air Saturday.

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Ernie Cefalu (born 1945) is a contemporary artist and Senior Creative Director, currently working out of Los Angeles, CA. He is known for designing art for music albums.

Cefalu attended the California College of Arts and Crafts (now California College of the Arts) and graduated in 1969 with honors. Soon after, Cefalu started his career on Madison Avenue at Carolini Advertising, where his first assignment was to create the campaign and graphics for the International Paper Company's 1970 national sales meeting. His solution took the form of an elaborate, award-winning off-Broadway musical production, Dolls Alive. In the early part of 1970 Cefalu became an Art Director at Norman Levit Advertising where he created the Jesus Christ Superstar album and Angels in an agency shootout with the Decca Records account as the prize

At the end of 1970, Cefalu joined forces with Craig Braun, Inc. in New York, and worked on The Rolling Stones Sticky Fingers album as well as Grand Funk Railroad's E Pluribus Funk. Eight months later, in mid-1971, he opened a satellite office in California for Braun, the head Creative Director. There, he was the creative force behind a string of famous album covers for Alice Cooper's School's Out, and Cheech & Chong's Big Bambu. He is also credited with being one of the people to design The Rolling Stones[3] "Lips and Tongue" logo.

Cefalu opened his own agency, Pacific Eye & Ear, in January 1972. Over the next 15 years, he created another 194 album covers for rock artists such as The Doors, Alice Cooper, Aerosmith, The Bee Gees, The Guess Who, Black Sabbath, Jefferson Airplane, the Modern Jazz Quartet, Burton Cummings, Grand Funk Railroad, Iron Butterfly, and Black Oak Arkansas. Cefalu's collaborations with then emerging illustrators such as Drew Struzan, Bill Garland, Joe Petagno, Carl Ramsey, Ingrid Haenke and Joe Garnet led Pacific Eye & Ear's quest to become one of the top album design companies in the country.

In 1985, Cefalu formed David Hale Associates and broadened his client roster beyond the music industry to include the food companies Nestle and Kraft. Over the next decade and a half, his work helped more than 20 brands in five divisions post double-digit sales growth. In 1990 he was retained by Panavision Motion Picture Cameras, NGK Spark Plugs and Rockwell International.

Lewis Allan Reed (March 2, 1942 – October 27, 2013) was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Although not commercially successful during its existence, the Velvet Underground became regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic and transgressive lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.

Having played guitar and sung in doo-wop groups in high school, Reed studied poetry at Syracuse University under Delmore Schwartz, and had served as a radio DJ, hosting a late-night avant garde music program while at college. After graduating from Syracuse, he went to work for Pickwick Records in New York City, a low-budget record company that specialized in sound-alike recordings, as a songwriter and session musician. A fellow session player at Pickwick was John Cale; together with Sterling Morrison and Angus MacLise, they would form the Velvet Underground in 1965. After building a reputation on the avant garde music scene, they gained the attention of Andy Warhol, who became the band's manager; they in turn became something of a fixture at The Factory, Warhol's art studio, and served as his "house band" for various projects. The band released their first album, now with drummer Moe Tucker and featuring German singer Nico, in 1967, and parted ways with Warhol shortly thereafter. Following several line-up changes and three more little heard albums, Reed quit the band in 1970