Fairport Convention – Unhalfbricking

Island, 1969
Design by Diogenic Attempts Ltd
Photography by Eric Hayes.

Up until the late Sixties, where there was a picture cover, it would normally have featured a portrait of the musicians, the acts name and album title positioned quite prominently. But then something of a revolution began to take place and, thanks to the likes of The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, more creative ideas ideas started to appear.

Should a portrait of the artist adorn their album covers or not? The argument has been waged for years. Many self conscious acts refuse to allow their face anywhere near the sleeve while others, most notably the more mainstream pop acts, don’t seem to mind too much

It was the style of Island Records’ releases at the time for their acts name and album title not to appear on their sleeves, choosing instead just their logo and catalogue number.

English folk-rock band, Fairport Convention’s were one of the first bands to take advantage of both of these for Unhalfbricking, the band’s third album, the second of three released in 1969. Released in the summer, it came at an extremely difficult time for the band coming just a couple of months after a car crash that killed drummer Martin Lamble and Richard Thompson’s girlfriend as the band returned home from a gig in Birmingham. The band’s manager at the time, Joe Boyd, recalls: “That cover shot was taken in early spring, right before the crash, I think.”

Canadian photographer, Eric Hayes, on an 18-month sabbatical in London was chosen by the band to shoot the cover for the album. He liked what Fairport’s were doing and they were fans of his work for other musicians. The shoot took place at Sandy Denny’s parents house in Wimbledon on a Sunday afternoon. Many more close-up shots of the band were taken but thank goodness they weren’t used. The reason that the sleeve for Unhalfbricking works is because the band aren’t the main focus of the photograph; in fact they are only just visible through the trellis. Instead it’s Sandy Denny’s parents (Neil and Edna) standing awkwardly outside the family home, Wimbledon’s St Mary’s Church in the background, that take centre stage while the band relax in the garden. After the shoot, the band were treated to a fry-up which was also photographed by Hayes and used for the back of the sleeve.

So, why is this such a great album cover? To me it’s perfect. Although the fashions have changed, the concept behind the image is timeless, with no typography to date it either. The square format frames the photograph wonderfully – the proportions of all the key features are just right. You get  the band photo but they aren’t the main feature.

The band’s record company, A&M Records, didn’t seem to share my opinion however choosing to replace the photograph of Neil and Edna Denny with a picture of circus elephants that certainly won’t win any design awards.

Eg & Alice – 24 Years Of Hunger

WEA, 1991
Design by Michael-Nash Associates
Photography by Andrew MacPherson

Why do I love this album sleeve so much? I have to admit that I am prejudiced slightly by the fact that it is my of all my all-time favourite records. But, there is more to it than that…

The album came out in 1991. Eg White and Alice Temple recorded it in Eg’s flat but despite that (or maybe because of that) the music is flawless, beautiful pop; lyrically stunning. For this reason, the sleeve didn’t need to be anything over the top. For publicity shy Temple and White, it was the music that had to do all the hard work here.

Shot by London-born photographer Andrew MacPherson, the same two photos not only graced the back and front of 24 Years Of Hunger but the two singles (Indian and Doesn’t Mean That Much To Me) that it spawned. The photography stayed the same, it was the design treatment for each that changed. Every so slightly.

Whether these two shots were the only two that Temple and White liked from a whole shoot, or whether their repeated use was planned, only those involved know. But it’s a successful work of genius anyway.

Where others may have overdone the artwork, my opinion is that such a  great, beautifully crafted album, didn’t need anything more than the simple black and white photography and a couple of strips of Dymo tape to make it successful. Twenty years on, although the album never did become the hit it so deserved to be, neither the sleeve or the artwork has dated one bit.

Since the release of 24 Years of Hunger, Alice Temple has returned to music occasionally while Eg White has found incredible success writing hit songs for Will Young, Natalie Imbruglia, James Morrison, Duffy and more. Photographer now works out of LA where he continues to shoot musicians and other celebrities.

Donald Byrd – A New Perspective

Blue Note, 1963
Design & Photography by Reid Miles

I have to be honest and say that I don’t know anything about Donald Byrd and I hadn’t heard any of this music from this album until I was researching this post. I had to include it in my list of Great Album Covers though because, well, it just is.

It is a typical Blue Note album cover and that’s because from the early 1950′s until 1967, all Blue Note’s sleeves were designed by one man: Reid Miles. In total, Miles designed around 500 sleeves for the label and everyone had the Miles look – clean designs, big typography and primary colours – a look that was, and actually, probably still is, the epitome of cool. It’s also probably true to say that no other label has ever created such a distinctive style for it’s output – a style that has stood the test of time and is still mimicked today – and that was certainly a high point in 1950s and 60s album cover art.

Often Miles’ designs featured the photography of Blue Note co-founder Francis Wolff but, in this case, the shot of Byrd is one of the designer’s own. The E-Type Jaguar over which Byrd leans had only been on the market for a couple of years when A New Perspective was released and at the time they were seen as an innovative car – as groundbreaking and modern as the music on this album by all accounts. The car offered a new perspective to drivers, the music a new perspective to listeners and with it’s low angle, Miles’ photograph offered a new, and somewhat phallic, perspective of the Jag’s bonnet.

The huge lights in the foreground and bulbous curves at first glance look like some sort of huge bug, it’s certainly an original angle from which to shoot the car. But it works. It draws you in, it makes you want to look closer and angles pull you in to Byrd in the centre. With such an impactful image, the typography is big bold and bright. It’s used next to Byrd’s head when it could easily have gone in the white space in the top right. And it’s great that he didn’t: it just wouldn’t have been the same there though. It wouldn’t have been in the style of the designer to do something so obvious!

Born in 1927, Miles grew up in California before joining the US Navy and then art college. In the early 1950s he moved to New York where he worked for the agency responsible for the Blue Note artwork and he stayed on the account for another 15 years until Blue Note were taken but over continued to work in design for many more years after.

The style of the Blue Note sleeves and Reid Miles is so incredible that I’m sure I’ll be writing about another one of his sleeves in this series before too long!

“My life from start to finish has been fun.
Not fun at anyone else’s expense.
Not fun causing trouble or bother or this or that.
Straightforward fun.

And it stood me well.
And I managed to actually make a living out of having a bit of fun.
And I can recommend it.

Life is just a breeze.
You wake up if you’re lucky.
And you don’t upset anybody.
You don’t want anything from anybody except you want to share the fact that they’re here because life is people.
And when I go outside whatever door, I’m in the middle of 60 million friends.

And it’s a great way to live.”

Jimmy Saville: 31 October 1926 – 29 October 2011

Duran Duran – Rio

EMI, 1982
Designed by Malcolm Garrett/Assorted Images, Illustration by Patrick Nagel

Rio was Duran Duran’s second album that saw them go from a popular band in the UK to an international phenonomen. It wasn’t always the case though – for several months, especially in the US, the sleeve for Rio was more widely recognised than the band or their music.

The sleeve was a joint effort by graphic designer and American illustrator Patrick Nagel. Nagel was already well known for easily recogniseable “Eighties Woman” illustrations that combined the style of Japanese woodblock illustrations with Art Noveau and Art deco and which regularly appeared in Playboy and other magazines. In his Rio illustration, especially commissioned for the artwork, Nagel captures brilliantly a look that not only screams 1982 but also says News Romantic and Duran Duran. With her perfect features, lipgloss, huge earrings and flowing clothes, the Rio in the illustration could easily have stepped straight out of a Duran Duran video.

But the sleeve isn’t just about the illustration; Garrett’s design work brings the whole thing together unifying the band’s name, album title and photography to complete the packaging. In the design he uses colours that compliment the illustration and uses his trademark bold lines which in this design echo the lines in Nagel’s work.

In the bottom right hand corner of the sleeve, Garrett has created a small tab which wraps around onto the back cover to form a seal. An eye icon sits either side of a D (presumably standing for Duran) and rather cleverly the words “Assorted Images” – making his own company’s name part of the design itself.

Although everything (including the terrible combination of Roman and Italic characters in the band member’s names on the sleevenotes – shown below) shouts of 1982, Duran Duran’s Rio sleeve still makes for an incredibly eye catching sleeve today.

Sadly Patrick Nagel died from a heart attack in 1984 aged only 39. Garrett, who had been to school and art college with Peter Saville (of Joy Division and New Order design fame) and who had previously worked alongside album sleeve design icon Barney Bubbles, went onto design for Culture Club, Simple Minds and Peter Gabriel among others. He was one of the first to ditch the traditional tools of the graphic designer for a computer. He still works in and writes about design today.

Blondie – Parallel Lines

Chrysalis, 1978
Designed by Ramey Communications, Photography by Edo Bertoglio

I’ve always loved this sleeve – my dad had it in his record collection – and, even as a child, I knew it was a classic. Maybe it was because it was such a striking image but more likely it was because it was simple; it was just black and white lines with the band in front after all.

Although they did combine some disco and new wave sounds into their music, Blondie were a punk band. Looking at the sleeve for Parallel Lines, the bands third album, you’d be excused for not realising it. Debbie Harry standing out in front of band in a dress that was a far cry from some of the outfits she’d been known for wearing on stage. The band dressed in suits, their ties creating more parallel lines. The only clue that things might not be quite what they seem is the guys casual footwear.

They all look like they have stepped out from a huge Bridget Riley Op-Art painting. Or is it piano keys? The typography is perfect for the sleeve and the era from which it came, the red matching Harry’s lipstick.

The idea for the sleeve was (the band’s manager) Peter Leeds’  idea who saw Blondie as being Debbie Harry with a band. With her incredible voice and good looks, maybe that’s the way the public always saw Blondie too but that wasn’t the way Harry or the band wanted it to be.

Although Parallel Lines is now viewed as one of the great album covers, on probably their greatest album, the band were opposed to the photograph used in the final design and singer Debbie Harry is documented as saying: “I don’t think it’s a great design, personally.” In the end, the artwork caused so much bad feeling that it saw Blondie parting company with Leeds.

Today, the fashion and the hairstyles date the photograph but the  striking simplicity is what makes this sleeve a classic.

As part of my research into great sleeves I asked the question on Facebook and Twitter: “What are your favourite album sleeves?”

The responses that came back did include some obvious ones but also a few unexpected surprises:

• Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon
• The Beatles – Sgt Pepper’s … (chosen by Mike Scott of The Waterboys)
• George Harrison – All Things Must Pass (chosen by Mike Scott of The Waterboys)
• Patti Smith – Horses (chosen by Mike Scott of The Waterboys)
• McGuinness Flint – Happy Birthday Ruby Baby (chosen by Mike Scott of The Waterboys)
• Green Day – American Idiot
• The Beatles – The Beatles (“white album”)
• Duran Duran – Rio
• Def Leppard – Pyromania/Hysteria/Adrenalize (chosen by singer/songwriter Andrea Glass)
• Supertramp – Breakfast In America
• Talking Heads – Fear Of Music
• Elton John – Captain Fantastic
• XTC – English Settlement
• Joy Division – Unknown Pleasures
• Earth Wind & Fire – All ‘n All
• Pet Shop Boys – Introspective
• Keane – Under the Iron Sea
• ELP – Brain Salad Surgery

… and more. Some of these listed here will definitely be featured in my posts.

The artwork may have gone from being 12″x12″ to approx 5″ square and now often just down to a thumbnail on screen but the work of a graphic designer within the music industry is still as important as it ever was. Sizes have changed, audiences have changed and so the designer has had to adapt. But that’s what good designers do.

A great sleeve doesn’t necessarily make a great record but it might make it more bearable!

MySpace, dear old MySpace. What are we to do with you?

For a couple of years now MySpace has been losing users by the millions. It seems nobody has a good word to say about it anymore. And that’s understandable: you only have to visit it’s homepage to be bombarded with big images, movie clips and in your face advertising. Once logged in it’s interface is slow to load and clumsy to do anything with. What once was the only website to be seen on, has now become a graveyard of unused profile pages; pages left because nobody can be bothered to go in and delete them. There was a time when I couldn’t even visit it because, due to the amount of movie files and flash activity, it would crash my computer.

Launched in 2003, MySpace was for a few years the leading social networking site until it was overtaken by Facebook in 2008. While it has it’s faults, Facebook has never allowed it’s uses to mess with the design of it’s pages and one look back into MySpace and you can see that maybe the allowance of glittery backgrounds and animated movies as part of a profile pages was the first of many nails in it’s coffin.

Statistics show that between January and February alone MySpace lost 10 million users. Sad really to think that it was once the most visited site in America, surpassing even Google in 2006. Don’t get me wrong it’s stills popular site – ranked 103rd most visited site in the world and still maintaining, for some reason, millions of users.

For all it’s redesigns and rethinks, MySpace’s decline is ongoing and it’s demise in the not too distant future is surely a certainty. Where just two years ago the site employed 16,000 members of staff now they have just 200.

So, what is to become of it? Like a champion race horse or a trusty, faithful pet dog, should it now be put out of it’s misery? Justin Timberlake doesn’t think so for along with Specific Media he bought the company for $35million – quite a bargain when you consider that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation valued it at around $327 million in 2005.

There’s no doubt that MySpace should go down in history as a game changer. It was the first big global social media site. Just for what he did to the music industry alone it should be acknowledged. Most famously it helped launched the careers of Lily Allen, Kate Nash and more but, coming as it did, at the same time as iTunes, it also gave other musicians a platform from which they could share their music and gain an audience without having to go through the traditional record company route. Artists could sell their music and announce their tour dates from the comfort of their own home. At last musicians had the freedom to get their talents heard and reap all the rewards themselves… well until a record exec showed up with his cheque book and offered them the chance to do it for them.

So what changed? Well, Facebook, with it’s cleaner layout and easier to use interface, came along and blew everything else out of the water. Although it didn’t initially offer musicians as many possibilities as MySpace, with their audience ignoring the latter they realised they weren’t actually sharing their music with anyone. The emergence of sites such as Reverb Nation, SoundCloud and BandCamp soon meant that artists could create their own websites that expressed their own personalities and from which they could sell their music.

Simply Marvellous Creative, in the last couple of years, have helped many musicians, at varying stages in their career, promote their music by giving them the website that they want and as a company that has experience in all aspects of design we can see that all the creative necessities of a musician can be taken care of under one roof as well as ensure that the same design styles are carried across from logos and flyers through to CD artwork and merchandise.

Data sourced from Wikipedia

Twitter is also a nasty place; with it’s little cliques, it’s bullying, name calling and general cattyness, it’s the school playground of the internet. There’s groups of people who tweet constantly but if you try and comment on something they’ve said and you’ll be lucky to get a response in return. Celebrities can have thousands of followers but only follow back there friends and family. You kind of think, if they are only going to bother talking to these dozen or so people, then why bother with Twitter at all. Surely the whole point is to get closer to their fans otherwise why have your conversation in public? Just text or phone.

Quite often these aren’t even major celebrities but often former soap actors who you’d think, if their inflated ego’s weren’t getting in the way, should be grateful for a bit of attention from people who still know or care who they are.

On the flipside there are many celebrities that have embraced the full power of social media and use it to their advantage. Singer Leddra Chapman, for example, may not follow back everyone but she does tweet herself as well as responding to questions from fans. As well as Twitter, Leddra uses Facebook very well, keeping fans up to date as well as frequent impromptu, late night web-cam concerts. There’s others as well but Leddra springs to mind because I’ve been in conversation with her recently.

And then there are those people on Twitter who only use it for self promotion. We’ve had them in our timelines, tweet after tweet of the same old thing. Often the same message, or a slight variation, posted time and time again with no personality at all. Or there’s those people who only retweet posts about themselves or retweet retweets they tweeted about themselves…

Back in 1988, and living in Cambridgeshire, everybody was talking about a local band who were sure to be big stars soon. The name of the band were The Bible and there songs Graceland and Honey be Good were regularly played on local radio stations. In November of that year, I was lucky enough to see them play a gig at the very fine Corn Exchange in the lovely city of Cambridge. It was a great show. I can remember moments of that particular show than I can of some I’ve been to more recently (I recall, for example, they opened the show with very splendid Skywriting).

With talented musicians and songwriters among them, why they didn’t become bigger is anybody’s guess. A lot of people seem to remember and like the two songs mentioned above despite neither of them making the Top 40.

The band didn’t last very long after that, though have reformed a couple of times since for one off gigs and a new album. Lead singer Boo Hewerdine, as well as working on his own solo career has written songs for Natalie Imbruglia, Paul Young, Suggs and, most notably, Eddi Reader who made hits out his songs Patience of Angels and Joke. Bible guitarist Neill Macoll is a successful session musician currently touring the world with David Gray while Tony Shepherd lectures in music in Sussex.

The Bible are reforming in 2011 to celebrate the 25th anniversary of their debut album, Walking The Ghost Back Home. Initially, the band have lined up two shows and a digitally remastered version of the album but it is hoped that they may stay together long enough to record some music too.

And the point behind this blog? Well, having worked on Boo Hewerdine’s website a couple of years ago (and a few projects since), I was asked to design and build The Bible’s official website and which makes me think how lucky I am to be working with musicians I love and which twenty-odd years ago I could only dreamed of working on (not least because, back then, nobody had even heard of a website!).

I often think I have the bloody best job in the world.