Stephen Byram was born in Oakland, California in 1952. After attending the Academy of Art in San Francisco he came to New York city in 1979. Working his way through a small design firm, Stiff Records and RCA, he became an art director for CBS Records in the early '80s. It was there he met Tim Berne (then just signed to Columbia) and while working on Tim's record package also met Stefan Winter, owner of JMT Records. During this time Byram was able to combine his art and design sensibilities in ways that, at the time, were not compatible with the commercial record business.

Byram's work has been acknowledged by the AIGA, the New York Art Directors Club, The Society of Illustrators and the Diamond Music Awards. His work has been shown in New York at the Spark Gallery and the Parsons School of Design. He has been designing for Intakt since 2020.