Ernie Cefalu

Updated on Dec 01, 2023

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Name Ernie Cefalu

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Ernie Cefalu (born 1945) is a contemporary Senior Creative Director, currently working out of Los Angeles, CA.

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 world-renowned Jesus Christ Superstar album and Angels in an agency shootout with the Decca Records account as the prize.

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Career

At the end of 1970, Cefalu joined forces with Craig Braun, Inc. in New York, and worked on the '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, where he was the head Creative Director. There, he was the creative force behind a string of popular album covers for Alice Cooper’s 'School's Out,' and Cheech & Chong’s 'Big Bambu,' among others.

Cefalu opened his own agency, Pacific Eye & Ear, in January 1972. Over the next 15 years, he created another 194 album covers for rock legends 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 two of the largest food companies in the world, 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. In 1996, Cefalu also added national retail chain Kmart, major motion picture studios Paramount, Universal, and Disney, National Hot Rod Association and Valvoline, and Wolfgang Puck's La Brea Bakery. Before the end of 2010 Cefalu had expanded his client roster to welcome Fortune 100 companies InBev, Honeywell/Novar and Avery Dennison and completed album covers 210, 211, and 212.

Awards and recognition

Thus far in his career, Cefalu has received three Grammy nominations and ten Music Hall of Fame Awards for his album cover work, as well as four Awards of Excellence from Art Directors Clubs. He has also been presented with 15 gold albums and a triple platinum album by the bands whose album covers he designed. With the 2008 release of Burton Cummings’ latest album, 'Above the Ground,' and the 2011 release for Alice Cooper’s 'Old School' box set Cefalu has 212 total album covers to his credit.

Present

Today, as Owner/Creative Director of HornbookInc, the Internet's first virtual agency, Cefalu is retained by four Fortune 100 companies as their internal Creative Director. He continues to take on select, music-related projects.

OriginalAlbumCoverArt.com

Over the course of his career, Cefalu has assembled what is arguably the largest, privately owned, collection of original album cover art and music-related illustration in the world. This body of over 260 signed, original pieces of art, highlighted at www.originalalbumcoverart.com, features the previously unavailable work of acclaimed illustrators Drew Struzan, Bill Garland, Joe Petagno, Carl Ramsey, Ingrid Haenke, Joe Garnet and many others.