{design} – Page 267 – { feuilleton }

Design as virus 6: Cassandre

Poster by Adolphe Mouron Cassandre for L’Intrangigent, a Paris newspaper, 1925.

Uncredited sleeve art for the second album by The Elektrics, 1981. Found whilst browsing this Flickr collection.

Signed to Capitol/EMI during the new wave/power pop boom of 1979 and 1980, this East Coast quintet fronted by vocalist Carl Worner, released their debut album Current Events in 1980. Though the album showed that the band was stylistically diverse and creative, the album sold poorly. State of Shock, their second album released in 1981, was a huge leap forward, yet didn’t garner the band many new fans or much radio play. After being dropped by EMI, the band split.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The album covers archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Design as virus 5: Gideon Glaser
• Design as virus 4: Metamorphoses
• Design as virus 3: the sincerest form of flattery
• Design as virus 2: album covers
• Design as virus 1: Victorian borders

1 Top Class Manager is a book bearing the subtitle “The notebooks of Joy Division’s manager, 1978–1980” published this week by Anti-Archivists, Manchester. I’ve been working on the design for this on and off since March although we actually started putting it together this time last year.

Rob Gretton, manager of Joy Division and later New Order, died in 1999 so this is something of a memorial to his work in giving Joy Division the status they have today. Rob’s widow, Lesley, oversaw (and paid for) the production. She and editor Abigail Ward contributed much to my design efforts which underwent considerable back and forth adjustment until we had something everyone was happy with. Some spreads from the book follow below and when I get the time I’ll add larger page views to the book design section of the main site. Music critic and historian Jon Savage wrote the foreword. This was an exciting and fascinating project to be involved, not least for the wealth of rare documentary material which it reveals.

1 Top Class Manager is available via mail order from the book’s website.

Continue reading “1 Top Class Manager”

A cover for Mr. VanderMeer

My period reworking of Jeff’s new Predator novel.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Fungal observations

Phallic bibelots

Does Priapus rule the month of October? Having this lot appear in the same week makes it seems likely. The carved carnelian sealing ring above comes via Silent-Porn-Star.

Then this Vivienne Westwood pendant turned up at Fabulon.

Finally, there’s the discovery of two artists producing phallic glasswork. Paul Thomas created the pendants above while Jamie Burress is responsible for the penis table.

Elsewhere on { feuilleton }
• The gay artists archive

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Phallic worship
• The art of ejaculation

Obsolete formats continued

Following yesterday’s post, more cassette culture. Cassette Generator allows you to make your own labelled cassette graphic like the one above. I’m not quite sure this has any compelling purpose but that’s the web for you. For the question of what to do with the world’s stock of unwanted cassettes, Designboom has a few suggestions, including the belt buckle below. If you need more bling, there’s also a gold version. And for real obsessives, there’s Tapedeck.org.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Old music and old technology