Released by Invada Records, original music by PJ Harvey, composed for the acclaimed stage production of ‘All About Eve’.
LP (and CD) design incorporating photography from the play, as well as behind-the-scenes images and notes from PJ Harvey. This really is a beautiful sounding record which was a pleasure to work on whilst listening to.
HANNA
Season One – Original Soundtrack
From Invada Records & Lakeshore Records comes the soundtrack to Amazon Prime’s ‘HANNA: Season 1’ on 2 x LP. Black & Grey splatter effect on White Vinyl housed in deluxe heavyweight gatefold Sleeve. For the first time, composers Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow were able to put together a team of musicians to work together to form a collaborative score for the whole series. The soundtrack consists of songs by Karen O and Beak>, plus an original score by Ben Salisbury & Geoff Barrow plus additonal composers The Insects, Simon Ashdown and Yann McCullough.
I was supplied with assets from the series and after a couple of false starts (AP thought the early ideas were too ‘horror’) we arrived at the package you see above.
Explore Bradford on Avon
At the end of 2018 I was approached by Bradford on Avon (the town where I live) Town Council to design an image/ logo to head-up and be used throughout an initiative to bring more information to those that live here/nearby and the ever increasing tourist trade this beautiful town attracts. The project is called ‘explore BoA’ and culminates with a new website which will cover all things Bradford on Avon.
This historic town has many distinctive features so finding one to cover all bases was going to be difficult, so I thought that perhaps the logo itself ought to be something that can be explored. On my wall I have print by a friend of mine who is also lives in town and is a designer, Jenny Dack – and no matter how many times I tried to draw various architectural elements, this print of Jennys kept looking down at me, noisily, until finally I asked her if she would be happy to contribute, fortunately she was. A mix and match of many local ingredients later, we had a lively logo all parties were happy with, which has now gone on to adorn local signage, maps, flags, stationery and other paraphernalia used to promote tourism in our beautiful town.
Charlotte Hatherley - True Love
Graphic design for Charlotte Hatherley’s new album ‘True Love’. A very Tarkovsky inspired bit of sci-fi realism for this Gatefold sleeve (with coloured vinyl) utilising stills from Charlottes latest video ‘The Sign’ directed by Gavin Rothery.
Mario Batkovic
Mario Batkovic is a Swiss virtuoso solo accordion player born in Bosnia. His playing can be challenging and experimental, yet it maintains a masterfully beautiful quality. Wanting to avoid the usual clichés, the sleeve is an extreme close up of the accordion almost to the point of minimalist ambiguity which, hopefully, reflects the sounds enclosed. Mario Batkovic’ double LP and CD is available from Invada Records
Peter Gabriel - Vinyl Soundtracks
Continuing with the remastered to vinyl re-releases of Peter Gabriel’s albums, come three of his excellent soundtracks – ‘Passion – Music to The Last Temptation of Christ’, ‘Birdy’, and one I had previously designed ‘Long Walk Home’. Once again I reverse engineered the original, existing albums – rescanning, cleaning, going back to original sources to get visual assets as good as possible for all parts, and adding something a little extra where I could.
Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ
Originally composed as the soundtrack for the Martin Scorsese film’ The Last Temptation of Christ’.
Cover art for the album, Drawing study for Self Image II (1987), is a mixed media composition by the artist Julian Grater. Inner gatefold contains photography from the film. I was particularly happy with the Joe Caroff inspired vinyl etch.
Birdy
Gabriels first soundtrack for the Alan Parker movie released in 1985. Studio/Film assets used throughout.
Long Walk Home: Music from the Rabbit-Proof Fence
Devised as a soundtrack to the Phillip Noyce film ‘Rabbit-Proof Fence’.
Cover art by the wonderful Australian artist Dorothy Napangardi, with Matt Nettheims photographs from the film throughout.
Ex Machina - Original Soundtrack by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow
Ex_Machina is a 2015 British Science-Fiction (but for how long?) film written and directed by author and screenwriter Alex Garland. IMDB describe the plot – ‘A young programmer is selected to participate in a breakthrough experiment in artificial intelligence by evaluating the human qualities of a breathtaking female A.I.’ – which is true and yet there is a whole lot more. If you haven’t seen it, I strongly urge you do. Beyond the story and apart from the beautiful photography, design and special FX of the film, the music plays a critical role in the viewing experience (as all great soundtracks should) and Geoff Barrow and Ben Salisbury’s score is of no exception and fits perfectly in its surroundings, always there but not always shouting about it, a bit like the birds in the trees whilst walking to work. I had worked with Geoff and Ben previously with ‘DROKK’ so I was very pleased when asked to work on this one too. I was given a number of approved stills from Universal Films and set about putting something together that I hoped would look like an object that might be seen on a shelf in Nathan’s (the story’s eccentric genius whose residence is also a research facility) home and also a homage to rated dystopian sci-fi of old, namely THX1138. I opted for a gatefold LP that looks arctic fresh, clean and linear, no superfluous movements or flourishes as the film imagery is so good already, some simple modern typography with a dash of chaos by means of a frost/blue vinyl splatter. Hopefully nice to look at, certainly great to listen to.
John Metcalfe - The Appearance of Colour
When I first spoke to John Metcalfe about his new record I immediately had an idea of what I wanted it to look like, but I wasn’t sure how to achieve it. I was certain the cover should be an image which indicates a sudden bursting into (or out of) life, that flicker of electricity from which all things are born (or end). Some time ago I saw an exhibition of photographs depicting the moment a cathode ray tube tv is turned on/off and I found them immediately fascinating. I showed these images to John and he was equally taken by them. We got in touch with Kenzee Patterson, an Australian artist who works across a wide array of media, materials and technology and He was really into being part of this record – “TX-21PS72AQ (2008) is from a series of photographs depicting the flash that occurs the moment a cathode ray tube television is switched off. The random scattering of electron beams produces unique patterns in an array of colours. This fleeting moment has been fixed on photographic film, rendering visible a normally imperceptible phenomenon. As a medium, analogue photography has withstood its own imminent demise, making it the ideal witness to the death throes of an obsolete technology.”
We all immediately agreed the image was too good to spoil with titles or additional information of any kind as that would detract from its ‘non-verbal’ impact. This ties into one of the core ideas behind John’s album -‘that the absence of a specific narrative can provoke much more intense reactions in our subconscious emotions’
Peter Gabriel - 'So' 25th Anniversary Box Set
25 years (or so) ago Peter Saville and Brett Wickens finished putting together a record sleeve that would go on to become a design classic. Obviously, quite a contributory part of the sleeves success was that of the audio delights of which it housed. Peter Gabriel’s ‘So’ turned out to be an extremely successful body of work, which, although including a particular song forever linked to that video, was and is, an album of so much more than just the ‘hits’.
Fast-forward to 2012 and I was asked to come up with ideas for repackaging ‘So’ for its 25th anniversary, no pressure then, considering the sleeves already near-legendary status. It was clear from the off that what Peter and Brett had done previously had to be held in high regard, (not to mention ‘if it aint broke etc’), and that the original graphics along with Trevor Key’s portrait of PG was always going to be front and centre. Even the marketing bods agreed with that one. Beyond the original sleeve art, I had a colour palette to work with which I would continue through to the individual 12″ record sleeves and finer details like the tail-bands of the book; PG has long been an exponent of using images instead of words (even many of the hand written lyrics I saw had thumbnail sketches in the margins) and we talked about creating icons for each of the songs rather than a regular tracklist, which I set about drawing, then revising till approved – some were easier than others, some fairly obvious distillations of the lyrics/title and some – ‘Dont Give Up’ (which appears on the red sleeve) for example, were influenced by the video of the time.
For handling production, theres no one better in my opinion than Daniel Mason, we’ve worked together before and I’m totally confident that give him any design, idea or sketch he’ll get it made just how you want it. I was in safe hands production-wise, now I just had to design it. I didn’t want to do anything that clashed with the original concept, but instead support and fit around it, so I opted for minimal graphics and different materials to broaden the aesthetic.
A white wibilin-covered hinged box with the original logo/type foil-blocked (matt black and blue) on the front and the individual track icons pearl foil-blocked down the spine (visible on the most part only when reflecting light), on opening the box you are presented with a 60-page hardback book featuring many unpublished photographs from the time and more-recent writings about the recording, promoting and touring ‘So’. The book neatly holds 6 discs (4CD and 2DVD) safely tucked into pockets on the inside covers, I opted for a brighter tone/colour on the inside of these pockets, the intention being to reflect some of the ‘lighter, pop-ier’ moments of the album. Also in the box are two heavyweight LPs, the album and a 12″ of three other tracks. The sleeves are red/blue coloured board with contrasting/complimentary inner bags, the track icon designs are subtly de-bossed on the front, (they’re almost invisible, but they are there).
This project really felt like I was handling the family silver, for what it means to PG, the fans, and of course, its design history, for me thats where the real pressure was. I’m pleased with how it has turned out and I hope this ‘refurb’ goes some way to successfully and respectfully deliver the really important bits (just like in 1986).
Further Explorations
Bill Evans was one of the great jazz piano players of all time, one of the pioneers of the jazz piano trio. This is a particular art form that has become a important part of jazz culture. ‘Further Explorations’ is a new album from Jazz trio – Chick Corea, Eddie Gomez and Paul Motian – although not a tribute record this is a Bill Evans inspired project,(in fact the title itself is derived from the classic Bill Evans album from the 60s titled ‘Explorations’) with both Paul and Eddie being part of Evans’ original Trio and Chick Corea playing/composing new trio songs.
I started by looking at some of Paul Motians earlier work, especially the ECM sleeves (which are always so damn good) as i really wanted to get an aesthetic of atmosphere just like those. The triangle is obvious i suppose, a shape of three equal sides forming a whole made perfect sense considering the line-up. Then I waited for a cold, foggy day and smudged the shape with my thumb on the studio window, giving the viewer a glimpse of what lay beyond, perhaps encouraging them to ‘explore further’ (you see what i did then!).
Very happy with this one.
The Mountain Goats - All Eternals Deck
When I first spoke with John Darnielle of ‘The Mountain Goats’ about the aesthetic of his new record, he said he’d like to see a mix of ‘ancient divinity’ and ‘1980s fear’ mixed with ‘a sort of contemporary wicca’, I thought ‘wow – this guys record had better be good!’. He didn’t disappoint. When he sent me the songs (demo’s at first) I could see immediately where he was coming from, the rich tapestry of well crafted lyrics take you along a journey you dare not switch over from.
On a slight tangent, when i was younger a friend of mine had a pirate copy of The Exorcist, I was genuinely scared to have this small label-less Betamax tape in my house, its two white spools staring at me in the darkness, ‘Poltergeist’ had a similar vibe’ – the ‘portal’ in the corner of our homes, where you can literally ‘switch to the other side’. There was something about that 80s supernatural austerity..
I should point out this album isn’t at all death metal (altho John is a big fan), and its always a risk that it might end up looking so bearing in mind the previous two paragraphs. No, this album had to look classy and minimal, invite you to pick up and examine further, saving the chaos til you open the box. It had to be black, except for some delicate spot silver typography of course, something rune-like but with a modern twist, Sam Chirnside had a prototype face that with a tweek here and there worked perfectly. So then, a modern mysticism. John agreed. we were up and running.
John sent me short descriptions of all of the songs (most are not as obvious as the titles suggest) and I then set about filming (on iphone) and sourcing archive footage to take grabs from. There’s something about a video grab, its murky and undefined. I remember reading a book called ‘Reasons for Knocking at an empty house’ by Bill Viola and looking at the sequences of distorted video images therein, they’re unsettling even if they’re not meant to be, I wanted that vibe, like the songs themselves the viewer can then draw there own conclusions, or, if they like, can just turn over.
It was coming together nicely, but i felt was looking a bit too dark, so the original sleeve became an O-card (wraps over the jewel case) and the cover in the case became the familiar pattern found on the back of tarot cards (done as a spot silver on maroon).
I don’t usually write so much on these posts (come back…!) but i thoroughly enjoyed working on this record. Maggie Fost and Merge (the record co) were very supportive, and John Darnielle genuinely made me feel like part of the recording process
Bradford on Avon Town Council
Once in a while a job comes along which is a real bear to wrestle, designing the local council logo for the town I live in was one of those occasions. Bradford on Avon is a beautiful part of the country and I feel very lucky to live here, as well as proud of its history and attitude to the future. I was approached by the Council to create a mark which reflect/suggests this positivity, also with a nod to important landmarks of the past. Those who know the area will be aware of the town bridge (built early in the 14th century to replace the broad ford that gives the town its name) and its 17th century lock-up (and possibly a chapel before then). On top is a fish-shaped weather vane: the ‘Bradford Gudgeon’; prisoners were said to be “below the fish and over the water”. For many many years it has been an icon of the town and it would be foolish to ignore this when considering a logo. Often at the banks beside the bridge you’ll find the swans, their nests, and at certain times of the year their eggs, then all being well, their young. So I set about photographing, sketching, distilling elements, going through many changes, always aware of the weight of responsibility when designing some so close to home, until finally coming up with a simple, colourful image which I hope reflects the warmth and optimism of our town. Take a look at the site bradfordonavon.co.uk to find out more or, even better, come visit.
Used on all Council correspondence, buildings and town signage.