Tim Bryant

Tim Bryant was an American art director and album cover designer whose work helped define the visual language of popular music in the 1970s and 1980s. He designed hundreds of albums for artists including Elvis Presley, Bob Dylan, David Bowie, Dolly Parton, Jimmy Buffett, John Coltrane, Jefferson Starship, Quincy Jones, Bob Seger, John Denver, Duke Ellington, the Beach Boys, and the Bee Gees, among many others. He also designed iconic covers for major cultural works, including the soundtracks to Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back, Grease, and Carl Sagan’s Cosmos, projects that extended album art into cinema, science, and mass culture. His extensive catalog includes some of the most iconic, era-defining designs from the pinnacle of the vinyl era.
He was a longtime member of the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences, served on its Board of Governors, and chaired the Album Packaging Committee, which oversaw the Grammy awards recognizing album cover and package design. His design for Fandango’s Last Kiss received a Grammy Award nomination for Best Recording Package in 1979. The album was later featured on the cover of TASCHEN’s Extraordinary Records, a landmark survey of innovative album-cover art, affirming its status as a classic of the form. Throughout his career, his work received numerous honors, including Rolling Stone’s Album Cover of the Year recognition.
A graduate of the Art Center School of Design in Los Angeles, Bryant began his career as an art director at ABC Records and RCA before becoming creative director of Gribbitt! Studio, where he helped create some of the era’s most distinctive and enduring album imagery. He later founded Bryant & Associates with his wife and longtime collaborator, designer Diane Bryant. The firm, later known as Bryant Design, expanded beyond music into corporate identity, branding, logo design, packaging, and advertising for clients ranging from Dow Chemical to House of Blues.