"The reproduction of the mini gatefolds is the best that I have seen of the Yes albums. We did not have the opportunity of reworking them from scratch as we did with the Repertoire releases where my brother Martyn rescanned everything and on several occasions re-photographed the original artwork. We did however achieve one notable success and that was with the packaging of Yessongs.
"When I designed this in 1973 I worked out a method of folding paper that would allow a gatefold of multiple pages to open like a book and for this I took out a joint patent with the then printers Tinsly Robor . The resulting package was, as far as I know, only produced in the UK and then only for a short time. Soon after the album's release there was a worldwide shortage of paper that seriously curtailed the number of gatefolds that were produced in the years before CDs came on the scene. The Victoria and Albert Museum, in London, acquired samples of it for the Print and Drawings department for their permanent collection. This was alongside the drawings and paintings for the original Yes logos, a dozen or so other of my album covers and record labels.
"Over the years I have tried to get the package manufactured properly. Atlantic's in-house printers had said it was too complicated! It was doubly frustrating when Atlantic's Japanese company East West Japan made the first replica gatefolds [here and here] they copied the US zig zag version which I felt not only looked unattractive but had the pictures in the wrong order. Finally after 36 years a correct version not only printed beautifully but also opening like a book, as it should."
