I’ve had many careers in my lifetime, one of them being a deejay in the 1990s London club scene. I regularly deejayed at clubs like FF at Turnmills, Mix it at Heaven, The Fridge, The legendary Bell in Kings Cross, and the good old Market Tavern. I gave it all up in about 1993 to follow my heart and find a way of making a living from my art, through motion graphic design. It’s taken me to places I never expected to be and here I am, Creative Director of a software company – sometimes I wonder how the hell I got here!
Anyway, next Sunday I’ll be marrying two of my worlds. We, GridIron Software, will be at IBC next week, partnering with Apple to show how our products can integrate and improve the production workflow. I’ll be working with Apple, showing how to get the best from Flow and their new Final Cut Studio.
Apple and GridIron will also be partnering on some other stuff that includes our IBC Party. We’ll be celebrating with our industry friends, the success of Flow which has recently had some amazing reviews. We’ll have a short introduction from our CEO and founder, Steve Forde, followed by a talk on Screen Design by our very own Mark Coleran, who designed screeen graphics for hollywood movies such as Tomb Raider, The World is not Enough, and the Bourne Identity. Mark left his career in Screen Graphic Design and joined GirdIron Software to work on the user experience and interface for Flow.
I’ll be dusting down my headphones, providing the MC services and also deejaying after Marks talk. I’ll be playing a mixture of music to suit everyone but please feel free to ask for requests by using the comments section below. The event is for pre-registered guests only but we have a few spare tickets available at the exhibition. So, if you want to come along, please make your way to the JVC stand in hall 10 (stand 10.D41) at the following times;
In this final blog-episode about the influence of Punk on Design I intend to highlight some of our own designers who are clearly influenced by Punk. I’ll start by mentioning one or two that emerged directly from the movement that followed the first few seeds sprinkled by the like of Vivienne Westwood and Jamie Reid, who I spoke about in the last episode.
The influence of fanzines like Sniffing Glue cannot be overlooked. Mark Perry, who was also the singer in Punk Band, Alternative TV started his fanzine in the summer of 1976, when the Punk Rock scene was at its most vibrant stage. At that time there was no media positively covering the emerging scene (although the mainstream British press were doing a good job of filling their front pages with outrage and condemnation). The amateurish and scrappy layouts took the whole ethos of Punk and applied it to magazine layout. Anyone could do this, all you needed was some paper, a marker pen, a creative mind, passion and a photocopier. In terms of layout and design there were no limits, to restrictions, no rules. It was a complete disregard for established “rules” of design” that allowed designers to wipe the slate clean and start again with a fresh new look.
It’s American counterpart, Punk ran for slightly longer, till 1979. This had a slightly more considered, “designed” look, using cartoonist, John Holstrom’s fabulous Crumb-esque characatures of the likes of Iggy Pop, The Ramones, Debbie Harry and Lou Reed to adorn it’s pages. It was slammed for being light-weight in comparison to it’s British counterparts. It was quite weak and was run as a business so lacked the passion and energy that Sniffing Glue was oozing with. But that shouldn’t detract from some excellent imagery produced by the artist-in-residence.
It wasn’t long before trained Graphic Designers started to adopt the styles and freedom that Punk provided. The first example that really stood out for me was the cover of a single by Manchester band, The Buzzcocks. The image on the cover was a collage created from body parts from porn magazines, torn and composited, collage-style; the head of the woman was replaced with an iron. The image was designed by Linder Sterling, an artist and collaborator on the fanzine, Secret Public. Sleeve designer, Malcolm Garret who had just left art college was responsible for the Bauhaus-inspired typography, composition and color choices. He went on to design all the subsequent covers for the Buzzcocks, then Duran Duran, Peter Gabriel and others. Malcolm really got the punk style established and has had continued success as one of our most well respected typographers and designers.
Other designers followed in the same vein. Neville Brody left college in 1980, where he designed posters for bands including the Human League. He went on to design artwork for post-punk bands like Depeche Mode and was catapulted to huge success after his work on the Face magazine. He is now an established graphic designer and typographer designing style for huge brands like the Guardian newspaper, and having work exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
Peter Saville was another contemporary who designed sleeves for Joy Division, New Order, Ultravox and developed the influential style of Factory records. His minimal style still looks current when placed next to contemporary designs.
So, these are a few examples of designers who have carried the influence of Punk through to today. I’m sure I’ve missed a few gems so please feel free to submit comments, inspirations and ideas. You can look everywhere to see design influenced by Punk and I’d love to see some of your own examples and comments.
Last week I spoke about the influence of punk in motion graphic design, the Punk rock revolution in the UK and how inspiring it was to young people like me. Today I’ll talk about some of the great designers who emerged from that scene. I’ll start by looking at two of the key players who defined the style of the Punk Rock movement in the UK.
There’s not one person responsible for the style of Punk, it was a coming together of minds and styles. A collective, group activity gained momentum, and as a result, the various styles of the people involved merged into an established fashion. But the pivotal people were the ones who recognized the elements that would excite and brought them together with style, panache and, of course an eye for design.
The punk movement grew out of a basic disillusionment, with the establishment, the music scene, fashion, the media. What better way to show your dissatisfaction than to tear it all up and start again? That’s exactly what punks did. Essays on design refer to this as Deconstruction. This wasn’t a new concept, post-modern art movements like the Dadaists and, ironically, the Constructivists used techniques of disassembly and reassembly to shake up the status quo and embrace a new way of looking at things.
In New York in the early seventies, bands like the New York Dolls would dress up in womens clothes in an attempt to shock away the apathy that existed in the music scene. Richard Hell was the one who became a blueprint for thousands of young punks, defining the spikey hair and ripped t-shirt look before anyone else. But it was really Vivienne Westwood who took the look and developed it into a recognizable style. Now one of our top designers, she started off with a small clothes shop on the Kings Road in London. She and Malcolm McClaren owned Let it Rock, a shop selling biker gear and teddy boy clothes. In 1974 this was revamped and renamed SEX, catering to the S&M scene and positioning itself nicely to shock the nation and take punk rock to the headlines.
The Sex Pistols hung out in the shop and that’s where the whole thing took off, the band formed, McClaren became the manager, and Vivienne designed clothes for them under the label, Seditionaries – it was a symbiotic relationship. At Art School Malcolm McClaren met Jamie Reid, a political activist and Situationist who was producing a radical magazine called Suburban Press. He used a cut and paste style of graphics in this magazine, and it was then that he defined his trade-mark ransom-note lettering that was made famous by the Sex Pistols first album Never Mind the Bollocks, Here’s the Sex Pistols.
In the next installment we’ll take a look at the designers who emerged from, or were directly influenced by the Punk movement.
I was asked on Twitter to write a blog about the early days of Punk in the UK and the influence of Punk on the world of motion graphic design. I am influenced heavily by the punk movement that started in the seventies in New York and London. I was 12 when it all started to kick off in the UK with the Sex Pistols and their entourage, the Bromley Contingent causing joyful havoc in the UK media.
Before the punk scene things had become very sterile and safe. Politically, the UK was in a mess with regular strikes and power cuts disrupting everyday life. The music scene was drowning in boring “prog rock” and endless, indulgent guitar solos. Something had to give!
Then along came the idea that you didn’t have to put up with what you were being spoon-fed. The disillusioned youth of Great Britain realized they could make their own music, art, magazines and fashion. Using the influence of the New York underground music scene (Patti Smith, The New York Dolls, Richard Hell, Iggy Pop, Velvet Underground, The Ramones) the kids of the UK took it upon themselves to create a whole new genre and to revolutionize a complete culture in a way that had never been done before (or has ever been done since).
As you can imagine, this was a really exciting time for a teenager to grow up. It wasn’t really till 1977 that I got hooked into the Punk scene. I loved it! Before then I was an awkward, funny-looking, scruffy, Tom-boyish kid with glasses who didn’t really fit in. I survived at school by being the class clown, and that way avoided any physical abuse from my fellow classmates, but I was regularly ridiculed for being “the outsider”. Suddenly with the Punk scene I could belong! It’s ironic, isn’t it, that the movement that purported to be all about being different, and not caring what other folks thought, became a lifeline of acceptance to kids who didn’t fit in anywhere else. It wasn’t that we wanted to be different, and didn’t care, it’s that we cared and desperately wanted to belong to anyone who’d have us. It’s human nature to want to feel like part of a gang, or a movement.
Anyway, inevitably, the vultures descended, and what started as a revolutionary, do-it-yourself, creative movement turned into just yet another fashion. Mainstream media quickly gobbled it up and spat it out as a kind of bastardized version of what it one was, and things have never been quite the same again.
However, the marks and influences of the punk movement are still alive and kicking today. Next week I’ll look at some of the deigns of today that were influenced by this movement.
On December the 8th I start work with Gridiron Software as their European Creative Director.
It’s all very exciting and scary at the same time. Big changes for me but I’m really ready for a new challenge and this role seems ideal as it incorporates a creative role with software design and development – so it’s right up my street.
I start in December and will be full-time with GI but they are still allowing me to take on creative projects as part of the deal. I will also still be able to offer my services as a demo artist to other companies on a partner basis.
Part of my job will be promoting a brand-new, revolutionary software product named Flow. I’m very excited about Flow as there’s nothing else quite like it out there and I reckon it will change the people connect with software.
I’d love to hear some feedback about Flow from anyone in the industry so if you get a chance to check it out please follow this link.
Wel, just back from another amazing IBC it was a great show and the whole expereience somewhat revived my enthusiasm for my job.
I decided to split the work this year and worked for Adobe in the mornings, and Gridiron in the Afternoons.In retrospect this was a bit over-ambitious for me, it was very tiring and the costume changes got a bit confusing, I felt like I had a split personality. It also made it harder to catch up with everyone I wanted to but it was good to be busy. Having said that I think I’ll stick to single companies from now on!
On the Adobe stand we showed the new CS4 video products which was really exciting. There’s an online event on the 23rd of September where you can see the new announcements so make sure to check in for that one, you can register here. I also did an impromptu interview and demo for Rick Young which I will post here as soon as it’s up online.
Working with the Gridiron Software team was fabulous. I met with old friends like Steve Forde, Mark Coleran, Daniel Brown. And met some great new people who I had only previously met via email. They are a great team to work with and I hope to be doing more work with them in the future.
We showed Flow which is the most exciting piece of software I’ve seen in years, plain and simple. It has already won industry awards at Macworld and NAB and continues to impress at every showing. It is such a great product to show as everyone I showed it to got the concept quickly and fell in love with it. It truly is revolutionary. If you want to find out more you can see an online demo, and sign up for the public beta here.
Of course there were lots of great parties and social events to attend so I’m feeling a little burnt out right now but have a two week vacation coming up. Can’t wait to kick back for a few days and get some well-needed R&R.
OK, it’s been a while since I posted a blog, I’ve been really busy trying to reinvent myself again! The last year has been an odd one. I decided to take a few months off from doing international events after IBC 2007, due to sheer exhaustion. But just as I was ready to return, Adobe made major changes in terms of events and marketing. Unfortunately, as a result, most of the freelancers in the UK (including myself) have lost a lot of UK-based demo work. Freelancers in the UK region have had to find alternative sources of income to replace this work.
Luckily there still seem to be a few companies in need of freelance demo artists so I am still doing the odd demo here and there;
But on the whole the slow down in demo work has been a good thing as it has encouraged me to get more involved in the creative pursuits that I have been studiously avoiding due to fear of failure! I’m now concentrating my time on writing my new book (which is not software based but still related to the industry) and teaching at Sussex Downs college and the University of Brighton. I’m also working on my own creative project when I can find time and am still doing freelance After effects work for production companies in the London/South East area.
Anyway, I’m looking for a bit of feedback regarding how many people in the digital media industry have traditional art or design training (art college or similar). Please feel free to respond to this post with a little info regarding the job you do, and how you got into the industry. Thanks for any responses,
