Posters are so infinitely adaptable. They can be any size or shape containing any variance of textual and graphical elements. Posters are usually the first port of call for conveying any kind of message. With regards to music this message is usually a show, an event, a gig or a release of an album or single.
Event posts often become items worthy of collection. Many concerts /gigs have specially designed custom prints of their posters often producing far more than needed to promote the show or producing generic posters to advertise but creating custom prints so that fans of the bands can purchase them for display at home. This blurs the line between a poster whose design exists to educate the observer and a poster that is supposed to be displayed as a piece of art. Sometimes beautiful posters do a very bad job from a design point of view because the information they contain is sacrificed in order to create a more visually stunning piece of work.
I've made a selection from my saved collection of posters...
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Rich
The new Fever Ray (Karin Dreijer Andersson from the Knife) video is fantastically disturbing. Kinda like the exorcism of a zombie cheerleader in the most suburban setting imaginable short of kids on lowrider bikes.
From the director of "What Else Is There?" by Royksopp...
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Rich
It’s all over the internets and I don’t like it. I love the image but I don’t like the album cover. I shall explain. The U2 artwork contains a stunning photograph by Japanese photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. The actual design though is deliberately non-committal; as softly-focused as the image on the cover. The lack of name implies a lack of ownership. What would Freud say? Only a band as big as U2 could release an album on which the cover has no mention of the artist but that doesn’t mean they should. The music on the U2 album is...
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Rich
Well, I just realised that the blog is three weeks old today so I thought I’d go a quick round-up and a thankyou to everyone who has visited so far, commented or tweeted and an extra special thankyou to people who have driven traffic my way by linking from their own fantastic blogs. Check out love from NotCot, Kanye West etc...
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Rich
Maybe it’s my mood, although I am feeling pretty chirpy, but this week’s album releases all look like arse. There’s something to dislike about almost everyone. In fact the only two I do really like is the new Steve Earle album as seen above and the Red Light Company album...
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Rich
The new Royksopp single is great; their unique sound always tickles me the right way. The video is an almost perfect match to the actual track in-so-much-as it completely captures the playfulness of it. It’s directed by Reuben Sutherland who has up until now mostly directed cool adverts but the Joy Rider films, the agency he works for/with, have also done stuff for the doves, wolf parade and fujiama miyaka. Space Invaders for the win.
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Rich
David Airey is a logo designer who runs an incredibly successful blog, DavidAirey.com, that has become a valuable resource for both designers and clients. He also runs the super popular LogoDesignLove.
David couldn’t limit his choice to just one album, I don’t think I could either, and he has selected The Rolling Stones – Forty Licks and Pink Floyd Dark Side of the Moon. They appeal to David because they’re “distinctive, memorable and not over-complicated”.
I'm not surprised David Airey chose a Rolling Stones album...
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Rich
I just got word of this amazing looking film about poster design and the counter-culture that’s associated with it. It’s directed by Iranian born Canadian film maker Eileen Yaghoobian and her film focuses on the subversive culture of rock posters in North America and the unique characters that design them.
Their art subverts popular American Culture; taking little pieces and rebuilding into controversial, often obscene, frequently vulgar but always strikingly beautiful poster designs that on the face tell you when a band is playing but with closer inspection reveal very different messages. The artists and designers are as idiosyncratic as their work. I can’t think of another film that focuses in this much detail on the visual elements of the scene and not just the music.
Click for more info and to see the Died Young, Stayed Pretty trailer...
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Rich
I’m rather unimpressed with most of the albums I’ve seen out for tomorrow but thankfully there were a few that didn’t make me want to super glue my eyes and ears shut.
The School of Seven Bells artwork is my favourite this week. More album covers...
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Rich
This is the very first in what I hope will be a long and successful series in which I pose the simple question “what is your favourite album cover and why?” Obviously this is a deeply personal question as it’s completely subjective. Favourite cover’s might be the result of fond memories or because it’s the work of a favourite designer or well…any reason really! I’ve started by contacting a number of my favourite bloggers and first up is Grace Bonney. Her hugely successful blog Design*Sponge is a constant source of inspiration and is jam packed with all the little things that make a house a home.
As you can see from the title of this post Grace chose Hendrix’s second studio album Axis: Bold As Love...
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Rich
