For The Record #6: Kate Moross

Link: Kate Moross
Link: Studio Moross
Link: Stiff Records
Link: Design Manchester 13
Link: Paul Gorman's Reasons to be Cheerful book


Ahead of her talk at Design Manchester 13 tomorrow (alongside Malcolm Garrett, Peter Saville and Mark Farrow, no less), Kate Moross selects the Kandinsky-inspired 1977 work by Barney Bubbles for The Damned's Music For Pleasure as her personal favourite sleeve.

"I didn't know what it was when I first found it but I loved it immediately," she says. "Some people will obviously know about Barney Bubbles but I still don't think he's had the recognition that he deserves. Not when you consider the amount of great work he did.

"I've got to know Bubbles' biographer Paul Gorman and he's said that he sees some of him in me. Not necessarily in terms of our styles... but it's a huge compliment."

Kate Moross' own book, Make Your Own Luck, is published by Prestel April 2014.

Manchester Confidential also has a feature on Design Manchester 13.

Club Cheval & Brodinski - 'Bromance #3' artwork by Viktor Hachmang

Link Viktor Hachmang
Link: Bromance

For the French love-in that is Brodinski and Club Cheval's third release for the former's Bromance label, the artwork depicts similar visual influences to those that have defined the Club Cheval-affliated Marble Music. Created by Holland's Viktor Hachmang - an illustrator whose work can often employ the post-modernist motifs associated with Memphis Group members like George Sowden - this contemporary work is one that owes a debt to Barney Bubbles. In this case its the kind of style used for Bubbles' technical drawing-based sleeve for Ian Dury's 'Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick' and it is one that additionally features what would have been self-reverential details that relate to the graphic designer of the late 1970s and early 1980s. But, while it may be something of a pastiche, it's obviously something with a real fondness for the era it evokes.

Meanwhile, for a more in-depth approximation of Barney Bubbles' output and influence, Paul Gorman's book comes highly recommended. You'll find that available via this link: Reasons to be Cheerful: The Life and Work of Barney Bubbles.

Punks Jump Up - 'Block Head' by Michael Willis

Link: Other Scenes

Michael Willis of Other Scenes has seemingly taken inspiration from the title of, Punks Jump Up's latest Kitsune release, 'Block Head' and created artwork linked closely to Ian Dury & The Blockheads.

This 'mask' artwork obviously owes a huge debt to Barney Bubbles including a typographic style that's suggestive of the one devised for the influential Stiff Records.

If you like that, get Paul Gorman's great book on Barnely Bubbles in its fairly new-ish 2010 edition: Reasons to be Cheerful