Joseph Jarman’s Song For… album cover 

Laini (Sylvia) Abernathy is an African American artist, designer, and activist from Chicago. Born as Sylvia Abernathy, she later changed her name to “Laini.” She was married to Billy “Fundi” Abernathy, a celebrated black activist photographer who she often collaborated with for many of her designs. Laini studied fine arts at Illinois Institute of Technology and created many designs in the Black Arts Movement of Chicago during her time as a student. She is known for her community mural design (Wall of Respect), designing and illustrating Amiri Baraka’s In Our Terribleness, and a multitude of album cover designs for Delmark Records. Laini Abernathy is “believed to be the first black woman credited for designing an album cover” (Fu, 2019).

To highlight a particular design, Laini Abernathy created the look for Joseph Jarman’s Song For album cover in 1967. Laini designed this jazz album with multiple lines of text wrapping around all edges of the cover like a frame and/or matting used when framing a work of art. She used all different antique typefaces for each row of wrapping text. “This repetition gives the design a frenetic energy that can be heard in Jarman’s work itself” (Adobe Express, 2023). On the outmost layer, Joseph Jarman’s name is set in Futura Black. Next, “Song For…” is set in Broadway typeface. A white outlined version of Windsor is used on the final wrapping text layer saying, “Quartet Quintet Septet.” The last typeface used on the artist's name centered on the album is Relievo No. 2, a 3-dimensional ornamented typeface from the Victorian Era.

This typographic album design is reminiscent of psychedelic designs with the vibrating complimentary colors of red and green touching each other. Laini uses these colors as a nod to Joseph Jarman’s African American heritage as they are seen on the African flag. White is used sparingly in this design to focus the viewer’s eye to the center of the album cover where the artist’s name and mirrored side profile are located.