Paul Gorman – Page 4 – { feuilleton }

Who is Heeps Willard?

In which Christmas arrives two weeks early…

It was nearly two years ago that I wrote “We’re overdue a decent book-length examination of his work and his influence” at the end of the epic Barney Bubbles post. Today I finally got to sit down with a copy of Paul Gorman’s wonderful monograph about the man and his work; if only all wishes were fulfilled so swiftly and completely. This is a really excellent book but then I would say that (even without being mentioned within) seeing as I’m among the target audience. Gorman’s text is light but anecdote-rich which is what I would have preferred, leaving plenty of room for page after page of incredible visuals. The heavy design analysis can wait, for now what we’ve required was a book to set the record straight (as it were) and tip the balance in Barney’s favour after years of neglect. This is that book.

I’m actually knocked out more than I expected seeing so much first class work brought together in one place. Barney’s early work throws light on his later evolution while the later material—as BB collectors Rebecca and Mike have noted—contains many traces of his earlier obsessions. Add to that the pages of sketches (!) and layout drafts, some truly stunning late paintings, furniture designs—including the electric plug table which Rian Hughes mentioned—and you have an essential purchase.

It’s worth mentioning again that Paul generously let me run an extract featuring some exclusive pieces that didn’t make the final cut. Paul also has further page samples at his site. As to who Heeps Willard is…that would be telling. You’ll have to buy the book if you want to find out.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 3: A Barney Bubbles exclusive
• More Barney Bubbles
• Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2
• Reasons To Be Cheerful: the Barney Bubbles revival
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 3: A Barney Bubbles exclusive

Or why Barney Bubbles rules… The Rumour were a Seventies band I never had any interest in, being part of the Stiff Records’ pub rock axis along with Nick Lowe and others; not weird or noisy enough for petulant moi. This is a shame since the Barney Bubbles design for their albums shows him at the pinnacle of his powers with an integrated, multi-media approach to packaging and advertising.

The pictures and text here have been very generously supplied by Paul Gorman whose BB monograph, Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work Of Barney Bubbles, is now on sale. This is an expanded extract from part of the book with the NME ad and Vinyl Factory graphic being exclusives to this posting. If you need to know why we keep raving about the man, simply scroll on down, bearing in mind that this was only a clutch of releases from a single band. Barney was pulling together work like this all the time for a host of different artists.

For more BB goodness there’s my original, sprawling post, further samples from Paul’s book at his site and also David Will’s blog which features all manner of rare historical material, including a feature about the Brian Griffin book referred to below.

Over to Paul…

An important yet overlooked Barney Bubbles design project of the post-punk period sprang from an unlikely source: the album with the unprepossessing title Frogs Krauts Clogs And Sprouts, released by Graham Parker’s backing band The Rumour in March 1979.

The pre-PC name took its cue from the album track Euro. Bubbles chose a less prosaic route in realising a remarkable and thematically-linked design package predicated on the ceremony and colour schemes of EEC officialdom. This was very much in the news in 1979, ahead of the first European elections held that summer.

Continue reading “Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 3: A Barney Bubbles exclusive”

More Barney Bubbles

For those who’ve been eagerly awaiting Paul Gorman’s Barney Bubbles monograph, here’s the latest. Readers in the UK may also like to know there’s a feature about the book in the current issue of The Word. By coincidence, if you turn the page in the magazine there’s another feature about the Rob Gretton book I designed recently, 1 Top Class Manager. And for coincidence overload, designer Peter Saville turns up in both volumes.

Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles
By Paul Gorman

“Barney Bubbles is the missing link between pop and culture” Peter Saville

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL is a lavishly illustrated celebration of the creative legacy of one of the most mysterious yet influential figures in graphic design: Barney Bubbles.

Bubbles – who died 25 years ago – links the colourful underground optimism of the 1960s to the sardonic and manipulative art which accompanied punk’s explosion a decade later.

Producing extraordinary artwork under the shroud of anonymity and a number of pseudonyms, in the 60s Bubbles created early posters for the Rolling Stones, brand and product design for Sir Terence Conran and psychedelic lightshows for the Pink Floyd.

He was also responsible for the art direction of underground magazines Oz and Frendz and the masthead for rock weekly the NME, and is best known for a plethora of stunning record sleeves, logos, insignia and promo videos for musicians and performers, from counter-culture collective Hawkwind to new wave stars Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, Nick Lowe, Graham Parker, The Damned, Billy Bragg, Squeeze, Depeche Mode and The Specials.

Meticulously researched with 600 images, REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL is the first and definitive investigation into Bubbles’ life and work, with interviews and contributions from family and close friends, college pals and workmates as well as collaborators including pop artist Derek Boshier, author Michael Moorcock and photographer Brian Griffin.

Incorporating many previously unpublished images, REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL is also the only comprehensive collection of Bubbles’ output over a 30-year period: every important record sleeve, poster and advertisement as well as examples of his excursions into abstract portraiture, book design and furniture, supported by student sketchbooks, working drawings, film proposals and personal photographs and correspondence.

Singer-songwriter Billy Bragg has contributed the foreword, graphic designer Peter Saville an essay on the significance of Bubbles’ oeuvre and his contemporary Malcolm Garrett a personal memoir.

REASONS TO BE CHEERFUL is published on December 4 2008.

Trim size: 280mm x 230mm
Binding: Hardback
Pages: 224
Words: 55,000
Images: 600
RRP: £24.99

And while we’re on the subject, Barney Bubbles enthusiasts Rebecca & Mike left news on the original BB posting about a forthcoming exhibition of work by photographer Brian Griffin.

On show will be the newspaper ‘Y’, the books ‘Copyright 1978′ and ‘Power’, and associated posters, including the ‘coat hanger and scarf’ poster for Brian’s photo show in 1980. All of these (apart from ‘Power’) will be available to buy too (we think)… so, if you want to, you can bag yourself an early Christmas present (and help put some turkey on Brian’s table!)

Here’s the details: Brian Griffin, 15 November – 8 December 2008 , Monday – Saturday 11 – 6, at ‘England & Co.’, 216 Westbourne Grove, London W11 2RH.

The ‘Y’ newspaper’s got a real chunky red button on the cover (in a little plastic bag); symbolic of the nuclear button we-thinks, and there’s a great concentric circle graphic on the cover too, which is reminiscent of a few things, like the back of the not-used Dury ‘4000 Weeks Holiday’ LP sleeve design and also the front of the never released ‘Station BPR’ LP sleeve (which was due to be the second release on Billy Bragg’s ‘Utility’ label). There’s also an illustration in ‘Y’ by Nazar Ali Khan of ICU fame.

The ‘Copyright 1978′ booklet is cool too; with nearly every one of Brian’s photos in it being accompanied by thumbnail graphics by Barney, which contain cryptically encoded comments. The one that always sticks in our mind is the one that questions whether it is good or bad to receive awards for your work.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2
• Reasons To Be Cheerful: the Barney Bubbles revival
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

Reasons To Be Cheerful, part 2

Four Hawkwind badges and a Nik Turner badge based on designs by Barney Bubbles. From the Coulthart archives.

Readers who’ve been waiting for Reasons To Be Cheerful, Paul Gorman‘s landmark study of the life and work of artist and designer Barney Bubbles, may like to know that Paul was in touch today with the suggestion that some pages of the book be previewed here closer to the release date on November 7th. I’d be more than happy for that, of course, so thought I’d mention it now in order to whet the appetite. As mentioned earlier, the book is published by Adelita and its launch will be accompanied by an exhibition at London Print Studio opening on October 23rd. Watch, as the saying goes, this space.

Also this week, Yvonne at Nemeton picked { feuilleton } as one of her nominations for the I Love Your Blog award. While I’m going to sidestep the difficult choice of having to pass the award on (which would require nominating a new group of people) I can at least add Nemeton—described as “musings on philosophy, politics, mysticism, geeky stuff, literature, news and ideas”—to the blogroll. Thanks Yvonne!

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Arte y pico award
• Reasons To Be Cheerful: the Barney Bubbles revival
• Barney Bubbles: artist and designer

The Look presents Nigel Waymouth

This delightful piece of Art Nouveau-inflected grooviness is one of the new T-shirts designed by Nigel Waymouth for The Look via Topman. Waymouth, as some readers here may know, was part of Hapshash & the Coloured Coat in the late Sixties, London’s leading group of psychedelic poster artists. In addition to design, Waymouth and Sheila Cohen opened the legendary Kings Road boutique Granny Takes A Trip (named after its stock of antique clothes) in 1966. That shop’s fame inspired a one-off single by Stockport group The Purple Gang in 1967 which the BBC banned for alleged drug references, although the trip in question concerns an elderly woman journeying each year to Hollywood. Waymouth’s flyer for the single, of which the shirt design is a variant, can be seen below.

The Look Presents Nigel Waymouth – in-store and online at Topman from Friday August 8

“Sepia tints and flouro tones…darkly psychedelic graphics for the 21st Century…”

Nigel Waymouth is a legend of British rock fashion and design.

Not only did he found the wild 60s Kings Road boutique Granny Takes A Trip (whose ever-changing shop design attracted the likes fo the Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Anita Pallenberg, Brigitte Bardot and Marianne Faithfull), but his graphic design company Hapshash produced eye-popping designs, posters and record sleeves for the The Who and Jimi Hendrix.

Original Hapshash artwork is highly prized in collector circles and Granny’s clothes are seriously sought-after on the vintage market. Now Nigel Waymouth makes his re-entry into fashion via The Look Presents – http://thelookpresents.com – with a contemporary t-shirt range reflecting the original Granny’s aesthetic by delving into decadent psychedelia replete with sepia tints and flouro tones.

The first five t-shirts are available in-store and online at Topman from August 8, with the launch party on August 14 at the George and Dragon in Shoreditch.

The Look Presents Nigel Waymouth is the second collection from the creative hub formed by author Paul Gorman and Soho boutique owner Max Karie. Our first, a collaboration with rock & roll brand Wonder Workshop, proved a great success earlier this summer and this autumn we launch The Look Presents Priceless, a menswear capsule collection with couturier to rock royalty Antony Price.

The shirts are priced £20 each. I rarely wear T-shirts on their own but I’ll probably have to get one of these, for the associations if nothing else.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• The New Love Poetry
• Dutch psychedelia
• Family Dog postcards
• The 14-Hour Technicolor Dream revisited