Decoding the Visual Identity and Design of Young India Record Label

Record collectors, like archaeologists love to dig! And just as archaeological finds reveal the context of a civilisation, album art offers visual clues to what a record sounds like. While album artworks reflected their music genres, they also served as an essential marketing tool. In an era before algorithmic playlists, it was the album cover (on records, cassettes, or CDs), that guided listeners’ choices and shaped musical taste. In markets and music stores, a striking cover design could determine whether a record caught a glance or earned a purchase.

This essay takes a closer look at the logo, cover art and inner label design of the Young India Record Label. How did it create a visual language that reflected the identity of a young nation-in-making? Let’s find out. 

The logo of the Young India record label and an emerging national identity

The Young India Record Label was established under The National Gramophone Record Manufacturing Company Ltd. in Mumbai, (formerly known as Bombay) in 1934. It emerged as one of the homegrown efforts in a market dominated by several European companies. Its catalogue reflected the subcontinent’s musical diversity in languages, genres and instrumentations.

A unique visual identity design was thus an important way to distinguish itself from its market competitors. The Young India Record Label logo reinforced its distinct identity using a tricolor flag (bearing three colour bands: orange at the top, white in the center and green at the bottom) with the words “Young India” in Roman script.

Each 78rpm shellac disc pressed by the label featured variations of the logo on the inner circle design, album covers and catalogues. 

Cultural echoes in the cover art

Young India’s cover art designs are quite dreamlike and devotional, drawing on Indian visual traditions. For example, this particular cover art of a Canarese Record, features a woman adorned in maang tikka (a traditional Indian head ornament) holding a manjeera or taal (similar to hand cymbals) in her hands – an instrument integral to Indian folk and religious music.

Another design depicts a dynamic duet: a male and female figure mid-dance, echoing classical theatre and divine archetypes.

The choice of colours, motifs and subtle text such as Young India Records: Hear your favourite artists (in elegant cursive) gently invites listeners into a future of selfhood and sovereignty, wrapped in melody. 

Young India’s Inner Circle Design

The inner circle of a record, also known as the label area, is the central part of a record disc. It typically displays key information such as the artist name, track title, catalogue number, and record label branding. Though non-playable, it is essential for identification and contributes to the record’s visual identity.

Young India went a step further by occasionally including small black-and-white photographs of singers, actors, or even national leaders like Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhash Chandra Bose (printed at the top edge or rim).This early hybrid of portraiture and label art (probably intended for better visibility/publicity) reinforced the connection between a performer’s voice and visual representation, giving recordings prestige and enhancing listener engagement. 

Young India’s collaboration with Prabhat Films

Prabhat Films, founded in 1929, blended myth, music, and social commentary. In Marathi, the name ‘Prabhat’  means ‘new dawn’ – the film studio represented a new beginning in India’s film industry and reflected the rise of modernity in Marathi socio-cultural life. No wonder, the film company pressed its music on the Young India label, sharing a similar vision of promoting homegrown art and artists.

The inner sleeve design for Prabhat Film’s collaboration with Young India record label, cleverly integrated cultural symbols. Prabhat’s logo, sketched by Fatelal, features a silhouette of a young woman blowing the tutari – a wind instrument that has deep ties with Maharashtrian culture, while the sun slowly rises from the bottom. The tutari encircles the record hole, making it a very interesting design integration. The inner circle also includes a black and white photograph of the singer on the top left corner, forming the shape of a little pie.

Introducing Prabhat’s film music on records not only made the songs of the film popular among people but they could now listen to their favourite film songs at the ease and convenience at their time. As Prabhat Films produced films in both Marathi and Hindi language, their music pressed on the label reflected the same.

Young India’s Records in Swahili

Young India also pressed popular Hindi film tunes sung in Swahili by Indians who migrated to East Africa. The inner circle design of such Swahili songs features a natural landscape with two giraffes. It is interesting to note how Young India adapted and incorporated local symbols into its design aesthetic. Sadly, there is no information on the illustrator of this design.

Young India’s records remind us that music is also a tangible cultural artefact.

Today, digital platforms often reduce album art to thumbnails. The thoughtful design of logos, covers, and inner labels is easily overlooked and various aspects of music – such as liner notes, list of musicians – are lost.

By combining design, music, and cultural storytelling, Young India created a unique design that tells us a story of India in the first half of the 20^th century, asking us to pause, to look as well as listen. In doing so, it offers not nostalgia, but a necessary reminder that music, like memory, deserves a form we can hold.