Detail from the sleeve of the Beach Boys, ‘Pet Sounds’ (1966)
From Paul Shaw’s amusing review of Simon Garfield’s new typography-for-laymen book:
Garfield analyzes the use of Cooper Black on the cover of Pet Sounds, the 1966 Beach Boys album, to explain one difference between legibility and readability: the impact of size. His point is correct, but his example is not. Although the title of Pet Sounds is set in Cooper Black, the song titles—his example of how Cooper Black is “unreadable” at small sizes—are not. They are set in Clarendon. Elsewhere there is an account of the type designer Cyrus Highsmith’s attempt to get through an entire day in New York City without seeing Helvetica. It’s one of the best stories in [the book]. Unfortunately, it’s not true. Highsmith has never lived in New York City …
Promotional image of Galaxie 500, 1990
From a Print magazine interview with Naomi Yang, bassist for Galaxie 500, Damon & Naomi, and a graphic designer:
I was studying architecture at the Harvard Graduate School of Design, until I realized I was never going to be happy being an architect and dropped out to go on tour with Galaxie 500, and I always remember one critique in particular. The project involved designing a small building on a plot of land, and at my critique one teacher complained that my building and landscape just looked like “it had always been there“—there were no flashy design moves on my part. I took that as a compliment …
My father was a photographer, and so I grew up appreciating the power of the photographic image. I think I pretty much still do rely on the power of the photographs I choose to use. It kind of goes back to my Milton Glaser roots—those iconic images. Of the Galaxie 500 covers, if I had to choose a favorite I think it would be On Fire — I took that photo myself — I made a crazy contraption with my camera so that I could press the shutter and be in the photo and I really wanted it to look like a 60s Elektra records cover (Love, the Stooges, Tim Buckley). It was a moment when Bruce Mau was doing all those beautiful Zone Book covers—the colors of those covers were so amazing, unlike anything I had ever seen before, so I actually called him (I didn’t know him) and asked how he did it. He very kindly explained how he was substituting or adding a PMS color in CMYK printing, and so that’s the technique I used. I guess even at that point in my album design I was using things I had discovered via book design. The cover typography came from Solotype in San Francisco, which specialized in unusual wooden and hot metal display types from the 60’s and you could order custom typesetting from them—pre-computer all your type had to be ordered, and it was expensive, that’s why only the display type was done that way. I think they charged by the letter.
From Billboard, 22 August 1981
In 1981, Olivia Newton-John released her most successful studio album, the double platinum Physical (No. 6 Pop). (Newton-John’s albums, If You Love Me, Let Me Know and Have You Never Been Mellow both charted higher with each spending one week at No. 1.) The title track, written by Steve Kipner and Terry Shaddick, spent ten weeks atop the Billboard Hot 100 matching the then record of most weeks at No. 1 held by Debby Boone’s “You Light Up My Life.” The single was certified platinum and it ultimately ranked as the biggest song of the decade. (In 2008, Billboard ranked the song No. 6 among all songs that charted in the 50-year history of the Hot 100.) The Physical album spawned two more singles, “Make a Move on Me” (No. 5 Pop, No. 6 AC) and “Landslide” (No. 52 Pop). [Wikipedia]
Maxell tape advertisement, 1990. Concept by Ed McCabe.
From Spin December 1990. Underneath it read: “To get a free ‘Man In The Chair’ poster, look for coupon in specially marked Maxell XLII 2-pack polybags at participating stores.”
Original poster for ‘Rockers,’ 1978. Designed by the director.
Originally intended as a documentary, Rockers features basically the entire Kingston crew of reggae stars as themselves — first acting out a riff on The Bicycle Thief and then gradually shifting into a foggily Marxist spin on Robin Hood. The spontaneity and naturalness of the actors and fluidity of director Theodoros Bafaloukos’ camerawork makes it probably the most successful example of its genre, upstaging the considerably more expensive 60s precursors Help! and It’s Trad Dad, in which it was supposed pop music could only translate to the screen through silliness.
Fleetwood Mac, “Tusk” (1979). Design by Vigon/Nahas/Vigon.
There were a lot of things going on with Tusk, most notoriously the final unwinding of the twist-tie romances between the band members. As a band, Fleetwood Mac was ripe for this: the most Frankensteinish of groups, in the late-60s they were a London blues band who made their mark with an instrumental (“Albatross”, #1 in the UK) but by the late-70s had wholly reconfigured based on two new hires: the Los Angeles chanteurs Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. This schizophrenia seems like it was the source for a lot of deeply-plumbed pop, since they managed to consistently meld their highly different styles into discernible, if often rather idiosyncratic, songs. Tusk in particular was the moment Lindsey Buckingham emerged as the singularly perfect talent for chaining all these links. Following the huge success of Rumours, he was permitted unlimited expenses and maneuvered into position to oversee the project without intervention. The result was a double-album littered with top-tier radio pop, recorded in constantly-changing, lo-fi arrangements. The production cost ran into the millions, and the sessions are said to have dragged on with a single-mindedness recalling Brian Wilson.
The cover of Tusk mirrors that shift of emphasis. On the previous two records in the band’s Buckingham/Nicks-era — their second eponymous record, and Rumours, — members are portraited in Renn Faire, underneath spidery, awkwardly-ornate lettering; those LPs contained consistent, crisply recorded three-and-a-half minute AM favorites like “Go Your Own Way” and “Rhiannon.” The front of Tusk is sparse and balanced — a mélange textile coloration with some tone-on-tone capitals for the band name, and scattered darkened patches, like the remnants of adhesive after tape is ripped off, and then that unplaceable Polaroid. Its precise typesetting and modulating but irregular color has a disorienting cleanliness that could just as easily describe Buckingham’s production. On “Save Me A Place,” for example, his yearning ballad is recorded through a pristine vintage condenser microphone and paired with a rhythm track of a box of two-inch tape struck by hand. Elsewhere, parallel drum tracks are panned to opposite ends of the mix; tape is sped up, looped; double-tracked guitars clash on overdubs; and five vocals recorded in Buckingham’s bathroom, on his knees, make the final cut. And then there’s a marching band.
In place of the stagey, black-and-white backdrop costume shots on the previous record, the back of an import version of Tusk has only a candid of the band laughing uncomfortably. (The Vigon/Nahas/Vigon team was nominated for a 1981 Grammy Award for the packaging, but lost to a brick of mild cheddar by Roy Kohara.)
This is pinched from my other gig. But this is just to say, even though the art for Hot Chip’s new record (left) is about as bad as its name, One Life Stand, its source material is singularly great: on the right is a detail from a poster by the late Heinz Edelmann, the superb illustrator who art directed Yellow Submarine.
There is probably nothing less hip in the Brooklyn lean-to lo-fi scene than “branding,” and yet it turns out to be something that wunderkinds The Beets are exceptionally good at. From the cover art of their first record, Spit On The Face Of People Who Don’t Want To Be Cool (Captured Tracks 24), to a large banner that hangs behind the band (spelling out their allegiance to Jackson Heights), they have employed Matthew Volz as band artist. I think the crusty crayola renderings nicely fit the band’s coffee-can acoustics.
Above Flyer for tonight’s show at Death By Audio, where the Beets are joined by labelmates Beach Fossils, San Diego’s Christmas Island, Nude Beach, and Tough Knuckles ($8).
