Your favorite graphic designer/musician alliances (graphic designer being outside the band itself)

Pedro Bell / Funkadelic - Parliament
Peter Saville / New Order
Joe Petagno / Motörhead
Hipgnosis / Led Zeppelin
The Designers Republic / Aphex Twin
Pete Fowler / Super Furry Animals
Roger Dean / Yes (i know, i know)

thinking of more

vaughan oliver / all those 4ad bands

haha, I was thinking which 4AD band to narrow down out of all of them.

Derek Riggs/Iron Maiden

Neville Brody / Cabaret Voltaire
Futura 2000 & Ben Drury / Mo Wax/UNKLE

xp - re: Vaughan Oliver, off the top of my head, I'd choose Throwing Muses, with Mtn Goats and Pixies tied for second.

Ray Pettibon / Black Flag

Hipgnosis and Pink Floyd (they did Led Zeppelin too?)

Julian House / Broadcast

^

i can think of quite a few label/designer alliances (montelimar/static caravan, jeff kleinsmith/sub pop) but band-specific ones aren't coming to mind so much..

well, choose which band got the best of 'em then

Good call on Julian House, also for the Ghost Box releases

Kim Hiorthøy / Scorch Trio (on Rune Grammaphon)

David Barnes / Of Montreal

D'Malventhomme / Bola

(Not sure if it's the "alliance" that I'm liking here. These are just examples of a designer doing consistently great work for a particular band.)

Grace Jones/Jean-Paul Goude!

Well, maybe not, I'm not sure to what extent he was responsible for design beyond the photography.

Depeche Mode/Anton Corbijn
and a far too easy answer, Jamie Hewlett/Gorillaz

Radiohead/Stanley Donwood, another easy one

The Drawing Board/Public Enemy

He was part of the band, but Bruce Licher's design work for Savage Republic overshadowed his bass playing.

Vaughan Oliver, narrowly edging out Saville. I like Oliver's body of work more, but the sleeves for Closer, Power, Corruption & Lies & "Blue Monday" are pretty hard to top. An honorary mention, also, to Pete Fowler.

This is my fave Oliver sleeve (sorry for the bigness, but I think it is warranted in this case):

http://vox2.cdn.amiestreet.com/album-art/Mouth-By-Mouth-by-His-Name-Is-Alive_156007_full.jpg

i was torn between hnia and belly for my favourite v23 sleeves

Brute/KMFDM -- for sheer instant recognizability at least.

Antony Price-Roxy Music

the guy who did all of severed heads' volition records sleeves

tibor kalman/talking heads

Richard Barnes/the Who. He only did one project for them, but damn:

http://www.thewho.net/whotabs/images/poster_maxrb.jpg

Paul Morley / 808 State

(would say Art Of Noise, but he was kinda part of that group once)

Jon Wozencroft and Touch records. Seriously, one of the best pairings of art/music I've ever seen.

The reason I stipulated "outside the band" for this thread, btw, isn't because I view musician/graphic artist wunderkinds as inferior or anything. There are plenty of great ones... Eye of Boredoms for example. Eye says he's just aping Pedro Bell, but there's definitely something unique in Eye's work on the Boredoms releases.

I'm just interested in what effect, positive and/or negative, a third party graphic designer has in a long term relationship with a band. They're often mentioned as being "part of the band's identity" all the time in publications, but no one ever peers deeper than that, which is kinda frustrating.

I mean, being in a band is usually (and I stress usually, not always) a junction of polyamory and abstinence. That's two forms of insecurity and tension right there. To quote the Mark S corollary, the reason a lot of pub rock bands seem to get along moreso than "non pub rock" is because at least having pints or at least living in that pub aura can neutralize the tensions -- which also can, sure, neutralize the interesting bits of the band, too. Without the pub aspect, being in a band can be a lot like, well, work. You're around the same people day in and day out much of your life whom you have to get along, and you can't (usually) get freaky with them.

Which is where the Third Party Graphic Person Or Team comes into play. (lol, not for freaking -- usually.) Is their role just to be yet another third party to deal with and do business with just because consistency is always good business? Or is there a more subtle neutralizing role in having that designer around? Maybe being a musician and looking at all your records at once is just more fulfilling when you know that there's a overall symbol present in the display... as opposed to just looking at them like a diary of work malaise, for example.

Feel free to rip apart, elaborate, question, etc.

The Designers Republic / Aphex Twin

ugggghhhhh noooooooo

I give you this Tombot, that TDR/AFX connection has inspired a lot of really really bad knockoffs.

that's because it was always about the tool and not the design. they are a knockoff in and of themselves, an adobe tutorial by teague

He was part of the band, but Bruce Licher's design work for Savage Republic overshadowed his bass playing.

Licher played guitar for SR.

Also James Marsh and Talk Talk

Mark Farrow / Spiritualized

It was always a pleasure to see what Stylorouge would do with each new Blur release.

hat's because it was always about the tool and not the design. they are a knockoff in and of themselves, an adobe tutorial by teague

― TOMBOT, Wednesday, October 22, 2008 6:22 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark

But maybe being 'about the tool' can produce work of interest?

I preferred their work with The Orb, or even PWEI, anyway.

Grace Jones/Jean-Paul Goude!

Seconded!

AOC/tDR
PWEI/tDR
Axiom/James Koehnline

I think I read in The Wire that Luciano's sister does the design for Perlon? That alliance anyway is pretty sweet.

Alex Rutterford stuff for Autechre is pretty outlandish.

Peter Saville/OMD more leik amirite

8vo/The Durutti Column

Paul Morley / 808 State

wait, what?

i liked tDR's design for LFO and Blech

Emil Schult / Kraftwerk (covers of Autobahn, Radio Activity, and Trans Europe Express)

yes, was trying to find out who did those

Pacific Eye & Ear / Black Oak Arkansas

Molly Hatchet/Frank Frazetta

Pushead / Metallica (AJFA years)

Also James Marsh and Talk Talk

wait, what?

― Annoying Display Name (blueski), Wednesday, October 22, 2008 4:11 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

Maybe ZTT / 808 State makes more sense? since the art design is credited to ZTT officially. But wasn't Morley at least a figurehead in ZTT's art design dept.?

ah i dunno, i'm probably gonna get a ZTT t-shirt from Uniqlo tho

Pedro Bell/Funkadelic. More than any other artist I can think of, he makes me wish I owned more than a handful of those albums on vinyl so I could see all those little tiny details in their full Fat Albert-on-acid glory. (Incidentally, even though they're my least favourite Funkadelic recordings, I LOVE that the CD reissues (on Priority?) are packaged with inserts that unfold to 75% scale reproductions of the originals, gatefold and all, which is about the best anyone can realistically hope for. Wish more labels did that.)

Also love those Neon Park/Little Feat covers. And the Roger Dean stuff, even though his Yes covers were basically interchangable with his series of covers for Budgie or Osibisa or etc.

Central Station/Happy Mondays

James Rizzi / Tom Tom Club

Emigre / Supercollider

Emigre / Basehead, for that matter

Kris Verwimp/Absu

Mark Farrow / Pet Shop Boys

Kind of amazed nobody has mentioned Velvets/Warhol yet..

Also Pink Floyd/Storm Thorgerson.

Ted Jones/Klaatu

Obv.

I think you need a minimum of two records to be associated with a designer, did Warhol design WLWH or was that Billy Name?

I'm kind of surprised no one has mentioned Alex Grey and Tool yet.

BTW Hipgnosis did a bunch of Sabbath albums too. Sabotage through Never Say Die, I believe.

Pacific Eye & Ear did Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

does ECM have an in-house designer?

and what was the guy's name that did the Roxy Music covers?...(I know Ferry had input, but somebody else did the layouts)...

The worst: Bob Mould/Bob Mould

Disgraceful that no-one has mentioned:

Malcolm Garrett / Buzzcocks

Also

Barney Bubbles / Hawkwind

did Warhol design WLWH or was that Billy Name?

Warhol

lightning bolt/paperrad

Hey henry s., I answered yr question

Thanks, Ich Bin. I don't know that one good cover out of only two designed cuts it for Andy

Mike Reddy / Fiery Furnaces

Julian house - broadcast, focus group etc

Julian House also heavily involved with Stereolab dots and loops onwards, who have one of the most consistent and gorgeous discographic designs.

He’s a member of Focus Group though so that one doesn’t count.

Maybe an alt thread for bands with great in-band designers? Le Le, Baroness, Tool top of my mind.

Simon Larbalestier / Pixies

Frank Frazzeta / Molly Hatchet needs a mention too. Those are amazing.

Drive By Truckers / Wes Freed

TODD TERJE / BENDIK KALTENBORN

ZEKE CLOUGH / SHACKLETON + SKULL DISCO releases.

Cal Schenkel and Zappa/Mothers

Paul Whitehead – three covers for Genesis and four for Van der Graaf Generator/Peter Hammill.