"Record Ranger Field Guide" - Revisited

One of the projects I'm quite proud of is the "Record Ranger Field Guide: West Texas Edition" book I designed and created for my grad thesis back in 2021. My thesis research focused on utilizing design and creative thinking to archive, preserve, and promote 1950s West Texas country music - showing why the music is important to Texas culture and why it is worth preserving. Since Texas music history is quite vast and expansive, I really had to narrow down my research focus.

The 60+ page book highlights regions of Texas country music, lists several of the record labels operating in West Texas during the 1950s, offers an introduction to Texas country music history, some of its pioneering artists, label design gallery, and goes into a bit more detail on a few of the bigger 'independent' labels from the region. I even created a custom slipcase with jukebox title strip highlighting the 'West Texas Edition' designation. The slipcase also reveals the 'Record Ranger' badge design on the field guide cover, making it a nice tie-in.

The book also features a primer on how to handle and properly clean and store records for preservation, per the guidance and recommendations of the United States Librabry of Congress and various other preservation organizations.

I have, as of yet, designed field guides focusing on the other regions of Texas country music. West Texas was easy to focus on, at the time, because of my personal connection (growing up in the area) and general interest in West Texas history. As West Texas was less populated at the time, versus the Gulf Coast region, for example, narrowing down the list of operating West Texas record labels in the 1950s was an easier task. Granted, since many established labels were private press labels (meaning an artist could pay an existing label to produce a custom pressing for them without being affiliated with that label) with no distribution, it's difficult to gauge just how many 'labels' were actually in operation. I'm sure through further research, I would find more West Texas labels from that time period. With a finite window to produce my field guide and thesis research, I think I still compiled a fairly comprehensive list. Granted, as this is just a 'guide', further research allows for expansion.

I have yet to make the field guide available to the public, but it may be released as a PDF in the future through the Texas Jukebox Project website. I'm sure I have some additional editing to do (correcting typos and what-not) before going back to print. Ultimately, I was quite happy with the field guide's end results, and it makes for a great tool to showcase how the Texas Jukebox Project uses design for preservation and promotion.

I'm looking forward to speaking more about the mission of the TJP to the public at future conferences and showing off the field guide to any who might be interested.