Kosh (art director)
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- This article is about Kosh the art and television director. For the Babylon 5 character, see Kosh.
Kosh is an art director, album cover designer, graphic artist and documentary producer/director. He was born in London, England and rose to prominence in the mid-1960s while designing for the Royal Ballet and the Royal Opera House.
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[edit] History
As art director of Art & Artists Magazine, he met The Beatles towards the end of the 1960s and was hired as Creative Director for Apple Records, where he was responsible for design, promotion and publicity. During this period he designed albums for a clientele that covered numerous British rock bands including The Rolling Stones. In 1969 Kosh handled the War Is Over campaign for John Lennon and Yoko Ono and created the infamous Abbey Road and Who’s Next? album covers. During this period Kosh became well known in the London avant-garde art scene for designing and producing exhibitions, posters and books.
In 1973 after garnering several awards with the London Design & Art Directors Club, he was elected to the British D&AD Jury before moving to Los Angeles. Once in Los Angeles he continued designing for various famous musicians including: Jimmy Buffett, The Eagles, Ringo Starr, Rod Stewart, and Spinal Tap.
He served as faculty member of Otis/Parsons Institute of Art and on the Board of Governors of the National Recording Academy. Kosh’s client roster has included Capitol Records, Columbia-TriStar, Walt Disney Studios, Walt Disney Classics, Fox Television, The Gurin Company, CNN, MCA, MGM, the NFL (he designed the Super Bowl XXI logo), Sony Records and Warner Bros. Records.
[edit] Works
A display of his more prominent graphics was exhibited at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum in Cleveland, Ohio.
- The Beatles
- 1969 Abbey Road, #1 (Designer)
- 1970 Let It Be, #1 (Designer)
- Ringo Starr
- 1970 Beaucoups of Blues, US #65 (Design and Art Direction)
- Humble Pie
- Smokin' (Designer)
- The Who
- Who’s Next (Designer)
- Rolling Stones
- Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out! (Designer)
- Through The Past, Darkly (Designer)
- Bad Company
- Jimmy Buffett
Hotel California- 1977 Son of a Son of a Sailor
- 1989 Off To See The Lizard
- 2002 Far Side Of The World
- 2005 Live In Fenway Park
- The Eagles
- 1976 Hotel California #1 US (16x Platinum), #2 UK
- voted No.6 in the Rolling Stone Magazine 100 Best Album Covers of all Time
- 1979 The Long Run #1 US (7x Platinum), #4 UK
- 1980 Eagles Live #6 US (7x Platinum), #24 UK
- Electric Light Orchestra
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- Designed the bands logo and these album covers
- A New World Record (1976)
- Out of the Blue (1977)
- Randy Newman
- Pointer Sisters
- 1981 [[Black & White (Pointer Sisters album)|Black & White]], #12 US, #21 UK
- 1982 So Excited, #59 US
- Linda Ronstadt
- 1974 Heart Like a Wheel
- all albums through 3 won Grammys
- 2002 The Very Best of Linda Ronstadt
- Spinal Tap
- 1992 Break Like the Wind
- Designed with Larry Brooks
- Ringo Starr
- 1976 Ringo's Rotogravure
- 1977 Ringo the 4th, US #162
- 1978 Bad Boy, US #129
- 1981 Stop and Smell the Roses, US #98
- Rod Stewart
- 1975 Atlantic Crossing, UK #1, US #9
- 1976 A Night on the Town, UK #1, US #2
- 1977 Foot Loose & Fancy Free, UK #3, US #2
- 1983 Body Wishes, UK #5, US #139
- James Taylor
[edit] Awards
Kosh is a seven-time Grammy nominee, and has won three of the awards:
- Grammy Awards of 1986 - John Kosh & Ron Larson (art directors) for Lush Life performed by Linda Ronstadt
- Grammy Awards of 1983 - John Kosh & Ron Larson (art directors) for Get Closer performed by Linda Ronstadt
- Grammy Awards of 1978 - John Kosh (art director) for Simple Dreams performed by Linda Ronstadt
[edit] Journey to the Ten Worlds
In 1995 Kosh and actor Susan Shearer formed Ten Worlds Entertainment. They directed the opening and closing sequences for the Emmy winning documentaries When The Lion Roars—The MGM Story and In Search of Dr. Seuss for Turner along with the 1992 through 1998 Billboard Awards telecasts for Fox TV. As production designers on the Showtime six-hour documentary, Sex and the Silver Screen with Raquel Welch, Kosh and Shearer recreated the look, lighting and film techniques of the 1960s back through the 1920s and teens. Ten Worlds was responsible for the title, set and production design for the CBS special 60 Years of Life Magazine hosted by Candice Bergen. Ten Worlds also produced the elegant show logos and graphics for a series of TCM documentaries on glamourous film stars such as Louise Brooks, Rita Hayworth and Clara Bow. They designed the Warner Bros. 75th Anniversary Show, Glorious Technicolor, hosted by Angela Lansbury, for TNT and the New Year’s special, Life Remembers for CBS. Ten Worlds achieved critical acclaim for their work on The Last Days of Kennedy and King for TBS and the ten-hour documentary 100 Years -100 Movies for the America Film Institute and CBS. The Ten Worlds team designed California Connected, a dynamic, weekly news program for PBS stations throughout California and The Barrymores, a 90-minute special for A&E along with Masters of Production for PBS, chronicling the great Hollywood movie production designers.
In 2005, Kosh led Ten Worlds Entertainment into its evolution – becoming Ten Worlds Productions, Inc. Under its new name, it produced and directed a pilot for The History Channel, Declassified: The Rise and Fall of the Wall, which sheds new light on the Berlin Wall. This pilot soon became a series, which Kosh is presently finishing up directing and producing this 13 part documentary series. The subjects of these documentaries focus on such figures as John Lennon, Fidel Castro, the Tet Offensive, Charles Lindbergh, Joseph Stalin and World War I.
Kosh and Ten Worlds Productions, Inc. are producing another, currently "classified", pilot for the History Channel..
