KOSH IS A MULTI-GRAMMY award winning art director and former creative director for Apple Records. In the mid-sixties, he was designer for The Royal Ballet and The Royal Opera House, where he produced a gold foil covered program for the anniversary Royal Gala attended by her Royal Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. At the age of 22, Kosh was responsible for designing the innovative entry portal to the “Young & Fantastic” avant garde art and sculpture exhibition on The Mall in London’s West End. Following his work for The Opera House, he met John Lennon and Yoko Ono in 1968 as they had admired his work as art director of Art & Artists magazine. They invited him to meet them one evening at Hammersmith Hospital, where Yoko was recuperating. Shortly thereafter they offered him a desk at Apple Records at 3 Saville Row. His first project was the “War Is Over (if you want it)” Christmas card, which led to the worldwide WAR IS OVER billboard campaign that continues to this day. He designed The Beatles’ Get Back picture book with the Let It Be album package, the Abbey Road album cover, John & Yoko’s elaborate Wedding Album box set, and Hey Jude. Kosh was one of the few attendees at the Beatles’ farewell rooftop concert. While working for Apple Records, he designed Mary Hopkin’s Postcard, Billy Preston’s That’s The Way God Planned It, George Harrison’s Radha Krisna Temple and The Plastic Ono Band’s, Life With The Lions, plus singles, “Give Peace a Chance”, “Instant Karma”, “Cold Turkey” and “Power To The People.” He also designed Phil Spector’s Christmas Album cover, which included the “Back To Mono” campaign button. Other works included the 1969 John Lennon Diary. Additionally, he was asked by Lennon and Yoko to fly to New York to deliver John’s cumbersome Bag One portfolio of erotic lithographs to the Lee Nordness Gallery and to attend the opening with the likes of Salvador Dali with his ocelot on a chain.
During his time in Britain, his clientele included the cream of British rock artists such as Badfinger, Donovan, Family, Humble Pie, The Rolling Stones, Spencer Davis Group, Stone the Crows, T. Rex and The Who. His work for Decca and London Records found him in Toronto and Chicago with The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra and in Venice, Italy with the Benny Goodman Orchestra. He is a two-time D&AD pencil award winner for the album Bandstand by Family in 1972 as well as in 1973 for an elaborate die cut album, Zinc Alloy & the Hidden Riders of Tomorrow (A Creamed Cage) for Marc Bolan & T.Rex. He received an honorable mention in the D&AD catalogue the same year for a compilation album, Guitar Album with illustrator Ian Beck.
The 1970s brought Kosh to L.A., where he worked with and designed for a large number of west coast recording artists including Aerosmith, Gregg Allman, Bad Company, Ginger Baker, Lewis Black, Jimmy Buffett, J.J. Cale, Carlene Carter, Kim Carnes, Cher, Chicago, KiKi Dee, Bob Dylan, Electric Light Orchestra, Dan Fogelberg, Marvin Gaye, Carole King, David Lindley, Melissa Manchester, Bette Midler, Steve Miller, The Moody Blues, The Motels, Randy Newman, Dolly Parton, Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers, Pointer Sisters, Prince, Richard Pryor, Bonnie Raitt, REO Speedwagon, Minnie Riperton, Rod Stewart, Spinal Tap, James Taylor, 10,000 Maniacs, Lily Tomlin, Trio, Jimmy Webb and W.A.S.P. Kosh designed four more album covers for Ringo Starr including Rotogravure. He worked extensively with Linda Ronstadt, which included 26 album covers and her autobiographical book, Simple Dreams. This led to garnering three GRAMMY awards for her albums, Simple Dreams, Get Closer and Lush Life with the latter two he shared with his partner, designer, Ron Larson. Kosh and Ron spent several years collaborating on many highly visible projects. Kosh designed the iconic logo and album cover, Hotel California, for the Eagles as well as the classic logo for ELO (inspired by the Wurlitzer jukeboxes his father worked on in the ‘50s.) He served two terms as a board member of The National Academy of Recording Arts and many of his album designs have been exhibited at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum.
After a stint as the West Coast creative director at Album Graphics, Inc., he teamed up with Kay Steele as Kosh Design and then joined designer Larry Brooks to form Kosh/Brooks Design. Their clients included several L.A. hair bands and opera diva, Sarah Brightman. Kosh designed the colorful interior of legendary Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace in West Hollywood in 1979.
In the nineties he started TEN WORLDS PRODUCTIONS, INC. with his then partner Susan Shearer, producing a string of animated TV titles taking TWP into the 21st century. The client list included Warner Bros, Fox, MGM, A&E, TBS, TCM, CBS, History Channel, PBS and The American Film Institute. Ten Worlds became the production designers for a six-hour documentary, Sex, Censorship & The Silver Screen, hosted by Raquel Welch, When The Lion Roars, The MGM Story, hosted by Patrick Stewart and the 75th anniversary show, The Warner Bros. Story with host, Peter Bogdanivich. Kosh’s team supplied the graphics for the live broadcast of the annual Billboard Awards. Kosh also designed the award trophy. The TWP team produced a 14-part documentary series for The History Channel, Declassified, beginning in 2005 with the highly rated show, The Rise and Fall of the [Berlin] Wall, researched in Berlin and Potsdam, Germany. Shearer and Kosh won first prize at the 2018 Hollywood Film Festival with their short comedy, Casting All Corpses, directed by Kosh. Their 2019 sci-fi short, Landings was shown in festivals across the US and Europe with Kosh and Susan as executive producers.
Kosh is currently operating KOSH DESIGN STUDIOS in Los Angeles with his partner Genny Schorr. Recent projects include Linda Ronstadt’s book, Feels Like Home, A Song for the Sonoran Borderlands, a picture book on America’s National Parks by photographer, Andy Katz, a picture disc reissue of Tanx for T. Rex on Demon Records LTD, the movie key art for Mistake for indie writer and director Honey Lauren, and a book and single cover for Genny’s memoir, All Roads Lead to Punk coming out on Hozac Books and Records in 2025.