But there’s more to it than that. As Zack says ‘California is progressive in so many ways, from protecting the environment through to legalizing cannabis. Because our frames are recycled, Vinylize resonates with Californians. There’s also the way we transform music into something else altogether. Californians love their heritage, but they keep an eye out for whatever’s new and hip.” For a large part of the journey, the Tiptons followed legendary Route 101 along the breathtaking California coast before heading off into the heartland of the state.

 

One of the highlights was stopping off at Uber Optics in Petaluma, where the family was blown away by the reception they received and the place itself. “It felt like we belonged to the Petaluma community because of Uber Optics, which was awesome.”

The impression the Tiptons made contributed to their warm reception. “On the day of the meeting, we all dressed up nicely and our boys greeted the owners politely,” says Yulia. “They weren’t expecting an entire family from Budapest to show up but, as soon as they got to know us, they felt connected. Many of them run family businesses too. Zack told the brand story and I showed the collection, picking out frames that would work best for their store.”

Nancy owns Vinylize Araya in black and purple. Her purple Araya is custom made from Prince’s Musicology album. She’s sure Uber Optics customers love Vinylize partly because she loves the brand so much. “My Vinylize frame is one of my favorite frames of all time. I wear my black Araya so often I was actually feeling sad for all my other frames because I felt I wasn’t giving them as much face play!”

 

 At Orange Circle Optometry, in the heart of Orange, Southern California, Dr Alex, his wife Dr Ly Nguyen and their team “try to be ourselves and incorporate our personalities into our work”. 

Vinylize is the perfect brand for Dr Alex and Orange for a bunch of reasons. 

 “It’s not just your generic cookie cutter frame, found in every store” says Dr Alex, “right down to the fact that no two pairs of the same style are identical because the grooves in each one are different, like a fingerprint. Carrying the brand makes us unique and attracts real individualists to us. The fact that Tipton’s a family business is huge for us too. Little by little we’re trying to replace big chain frames with those from family-owned outfits.” 

All of which adds up. But there’s another reason that Dr Alex loves Vinylize. “I played in multiple band when I was younger and we released our music on seven inch vinyl singles. Inviting Vinylize into our practice was a no-brainer. And now that I’ve just turned 40 and my near vision is not so great, I’ll be ordering a pair of AC/DC Hell soon.”

The Best Art Vinyl award is the brainchild of Art Vinyl. Art Vinyl’s unique Play & Display Flip Frames enable music and art lovers to display their favorite vinyl records on your wall. The first real champions of art and design for vinyl records, Art Vinyl also curates exhibitions showcasing the best in sleeve design.

Each year, the company publicly invites British vinyl enthusiasts to vote for the best album cover art of that year. The UK award for 2018, announced in early January 2019, was won by Rahi Rezvani, designer and photographer of the Editors’ sixth album Violence.

Best Art Vinyl Italia - the Italian arm of Art Vinyl

Before he launched Art Vinyl in Italy, Paolo Zamma was a buyer in the music industry. Although Art Vinyl Italia has been in existence for 9 years, Paolo’s relationship with Art Vinyl began around 11 years ago, when he first encountered the Play & Display frames.

“I was impressed by the idea and understood the concept straight away,” Paolo says. “It was also around the time that vinyl records were beginning to be re-pressed and Record Store Day was starting. I knew we were at the beginning of something that would give a whole new life to vinyl records. In Italy, vinyl records have never been as popular as they are today.”

Frames in common

The connection between Zack and Andrew goes back to even before Art Vinyl was born.

“I was probably one of Zack’s very first customers,” Andrew says. “Around 15 years ago, I bought a pair of Vinylize from the one shop in London that was stocking them. I fell in love with the product then and there. Now, what I find quite lovely is that people like Zack and me, fans of vinyl who started out building interesting businesses at a time when people weren’t buying vinyl are now thriving.”

“Andrew got in touch with me when he wanted new frames that were exactly the same as his first pair of Vinylize,” Zack continues. “This would have been around eight years ago. We met at Rough Trade East in London and found we had a lot in common, starting with the fact that he makes frames for vinyl and I make frames out of vinyl.”

Andrew and Zack stayed in touch and, a few years ago, Zack organized a Hungarian Best Art Vinyl award at Mono, an art and design gallery in Budapest.

Let’s talk about the music connection. It’s one of the things that defines Vinylize. How do you see this evolving in future? 

The AC/DC collections have been huge for us and we’re talking to other big name rock and roll bands. But we also want to make connections with other styles of music. Jazz is the obvious one. Sunglasses have always been an intrinsic part of jazz cool. Having said that, we also want to develop our own designs. Without boasting, our glasses sell on their own merits.

A QUICK CHAT WITH ZOLTAN TIPTON

Zoltan manages Vinylize's operations in the states, from his home in Maui.

For Zoltan, "It's great to see the Vinylize brand reach the heights that it has and see a lot of room for further success thanks to the solid team behind the brand."

He's delighted to see people all over the world wearing Vinylize frames and believes the brand is in "a great position to expand upon the existing base of very happy clients, collaborate with legendary bands and rock the world."