graphics - Style Of Eye

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This category is possibly my favourite. It’s such a rich and rewarding experience searching and discovering, and re-discovering the weird, wild and wonderful world of movie poster graphic design and artwork.

I’ve indulged my more lurid tastes this time round, hell, I’m a lurid kinda guy! Exploitation and seedy genre flicks, the sexadelic and the futuristic, the macho posturing and the foxy allure. There’s so much room for experimentation and for pushing the boundaries of good taste. And therein lies The Rub.

Sometimes it’s the artwork that does cross the line from what might be considering ‘”classy” unto something that is deemed “crass” that actually makes for a more interesting movie poster image, especially if it captures the essence of the movie more succinctly than something trying only to suggest or hint at.

I’m a sucker for strong and vivid use of figures and faces and bold and creative use of typeface. I think you’ll find this represented solidly in this selection. And a touch of the provocative too, just for good measure.

Often foreign (ie non-English) artwork is more left of centre, even more abstract than the original Western (or Hollywood) design. For example the Polish poster art for the movie Alien, which, let’s face it, is downright strange. But then, hey, the movie is called Alien, so the graphic designer must have interpreted the title literally. I'm all for creative freedom!

I see ol' craggy-faced Charles Bronson features twice, now he was a well-used poster face in the 70s. But what about my favourites here, apart from the fact that I love them all, I guess if I had to whittle it down to a top three, I'd single out Forbidden Planet, High Plains Drifter and To Live and Die in LA. But hey, that was difficult ... the poster for Deathrace 2000 keeps staring me down!

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Posted By: Raoul Duke - Category: graphics

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record covers II

September 23rd 2007 23:25

There was always gonna be a second installment of this post, and no doubt a third and fourth and fifth. Let’s face it, there are more record covers out there than there are hot dinners, or should I say hot lunches (see movie posters II).

Of course for every sensational record cover there’s one that just looks wrong. There can be the intentionally wrong, and then there’s the wrong wrong, y’know, just bad concept, bad photography, bad artwork, bad lettering, etc. But I’m certainly not here to dwell on the terrible record covers.

I’m here to champion the cool, hip, stylish, innovative, sexy, sophisticated, suave, and altogether classic record covers. Of course, as I will re-iterate from time to time at this blog; taste is in the eye of the beholder. And I wish to blow my own horn here … If taste and beauty are in the eye of the beholder, then I am gifted with 20/20 ocular aesthetics.

But enough of the auto-fellatio, let’s get back to the matter at hand: record covers. Not silly little CD covers, where everything has been scrunched and condensed and compressed and shrunken, but the good ol’ fashioned 12”s of fun. That's where the protein lies.

Like movie posters I tend to gravitate toward the older ones (generally from the 70s and 80s), where there's less of the modern digital manipulation of images and more of the cut and paste, illustration and straight photography approach. Covers where the concept is king.

Me'Shell Nedgeocello - Peace Beyond Passion

Pink Floyd - A Momentary Lapse of Reason

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel (aka Melt)

As a teenager I was impressed by the self-effacing Polaroid manipulation of the Peter Gabriel cover (an amazing album too). The Meatloaf album seemed to be in every record collection of every house I visited. Grace Jones' cut out face stared back at you with such masculine authority. H. R. Giger's acupuncture of Deborah Harry's face was cool, yet a little disturbing, while David Sylvian just simmered in his arty shadow. And as for Tom, well, that cover just summed up Mr Waits to a tee.

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Posted By: Raoul Duke - Category: graphics

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movie posters II

September 21st 2007 04:33

I’m returning to the (film) scene of the (graphic design) crime. I couldn’t keep away. I love the look of classic and cult movie posters, especially those from the 60s and 70s. There are many exceptions to the rule, but on the whole these two decades were a particularly inventive and novel period of movie poster design.

Graphic designers don’t use illustration nearly as much as they used to. Too often the movie posters of today use plain head shots all in a pretty row. It’s damn bloody boring. Still, I’d be a hypocrite if I continued to moan, because I do like the use of faces in movie posters, but it all depends on the context.

So with no further adieu I’d like to turn the twenty-four mini spotlights up, ring the foyer bell and usher you all into the auditorium for a little perusal of my second original movie poster exhibition. I’m sure you’ll find something in the gallery that raises your eyebrow, piques your interest, tickles your fancy, even rubs you up the right way.

You might even jot down a few titles and be heading for the video store to line up a weekend’s viewing or three. I mean let's face it, that's what movie posters are meant to do: lure you in and make you wanna see that movie!

Now where’s that bag of popcorn? I know I have some somewhere in that silly large pantry of mine.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) movie poster

Now there's some seriously funkysexycool poster designs up there ... What are my ultimate faves? Hmmmm, probably Escape From New York, Flesh Gordon, Taxi Driver, Star Wars and Wizards. But I must say that poster to Dune, when Mexican maverick director Alexandro Jodorowsky was attached to direct (and H.R. Giger was the production designer!) is compelling.

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Posted By: Raoul Duke - Category: graphics

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record covers

August 29th 2007 02:18

Where does one start?! This is probably the most difficult of my posts so far, as the list for selection is huge. But then, as I went through my indispensable book 1000 Record Covers by Michael Ochs (man, has that guy got a collection or what?!), I discovered that my personal aesthetics were represented not nearly as often as I thought they would.

Still, despite the thousand covers in Ochs' pictorial archives, that barely touches the tip of the iceberg. There are literally hundreds of thousands of record covers out there, most of which most of us will never see.

I have a fair few records of my own. I’ve been buying vinyl since I was about eleven years old. The first record I bought with all my own money was Michael Jackson’s Off The Wall LP.

I love the record, so for me the cover is cool; Michael in a tuxedo with glowing white socks and a handsome face (he’d had one nose job by then, but that was it), posing against a brick wall. It was a gatefold and it was one of my record treasures until it was stolen from a mate’s DJ crate ten or so years ago. I was quietly devastated. I replaced it, but the new copy doesn’t hold quite the same posterity or nostalgic allure. Another gatefold cover I thought was very alluring was the Diana Ross album Diana. The image used is one of the best photos of her ever taken.

With cover graphic design I love the imaginative interplay between photography and illustration, the type of fonts used for the text, where the type is placed on the cover (or if there is any text at all!). Sometimes I’m drawn to covers that seem to bare no relation to the album’s title, while others I love for their provocative display of theme(s) relating to the album.

With the arrival of CDs, record cover artwork was diminished, literally. Sure, more room for sleeve notes, but less room for artwork that commanded your attention. Initially I refused to embrace CDs, and then I realised I was probably going to have to replace all my records. I started to, but to my profound relief found the disc jockey industry demand for vinyl meant they weren’t going to be made obsolete so soon.

The following selection represents my love of pure, classic iconographic imagery; the sensual, the fantastic, the witty, the minimal, faces and bodies, line and form, type and text.

Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark - Crush

Peter Gabriel - Peter Gabriel aka Security

Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass - Whipped Cream and Other Delights

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love gatefold

It’s too hard to pick absolute favourites. I love Isaac Hayes' chrome dome bling, I love Blondie's bridge perspective, I love the dual dominance/submission of Carly Simon's pose, I love the moody elegance of Steely Dan, and I love the date stamp of New Order. There’ll definitely be a “mo’ record covers” post that’s fer sure!

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Posted By: Raoul Duke - Category: graphics

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movie posters

August 15th 2007 04:10

I love movies. Not too surprising I guess. I love the visual artifice, the narrative invention, the audience manipulation, the realism and the escapism. I also admire imaginative movie poster art. You don’t see as much of it these days. A lot of poster art, especially that which is churned out of the Hollywood machine, uses homogenised images, a mundane use of text and graphics, and tedious tag lines.

Back in the day – the 50s, 60s, 70s and to a lesser extent the 80s - movie poster art was much more imaginative and expressive, it was also more risqué and provocative. This is a generalisation I’ll admit, but it leans far more toward the rule than the exception.

The poster art that I particularly enjoy belongs to movies of the subversive, transgressive and exploitative genres; science fiction, horror, gangster, psychedelic, blaxploitation, sexploitation, black comedy. More often than not these genres lend themselves to more colourful (I use the word in its broader definition) imagery and unique interplay between graphics and artwork.

I appreciate the graphic artists who are clever and/or subtle in the way they incorporate (or not) images lifted directly from the movie. In some cases still photographers are brought in to specifically shoot pictures not even in the movie. In the 50s, posters frequently used an illustrator to conjure a more elaborate, far more stylized and provocative, interpretation of one or more of the images from the movie.

The movie posters of past decades are the kinds I’d love to see exhibitions of. Huge mounted prints skillfully lit in a gallery, so I could admire them leisurely and close-up. I’ve owned some great movie posters in my time. Unfortunately they’ve been damaged along the way, or in some cases I’ve lost them when I’ve moved house. I've seen the majority of these movies and I’d certainly love to own all of the posters too!

It’s difficult to choose absolute favourites, since I enjoy different visual elements from each of the examples, but if push came to shove … the arty-farty in me adores the poster to Cul-de-Sac, the sensualist in me caresses the Black Emanuelle silhouette, the minimalist me appreciates Solaris, while the trashbag in me digs Galaxina, and the modern noir-head finds the Mean Streets artwork of a very high calibre … Hot damn, I love ‘em all!

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Posted By: Raoul Duke - Category: graphics

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jokers

July 27th 2007 01:32

A joker in the hand is worth much more in the bush

When I was teenager I came up with a brilliant idea. Forget collecting coins, stamps, dolls, ties, matchbooks, model fucking airplanes … I was gonna collect “jokers”. I was gonna ruin as many packs of playing cards as I could by stealing the jokers from them and displaying them in a portfolio using the face of one to exhibit the joker itself, and the back of the other to represent the generic design of the playing card.

I never followed through. I was too lazy. I collected perhaps a dozen and then realized it was too much hard work, plus I’d no doubt piss too many people off. I wasn’t gonna spend my life searching high and low for obscure makes of playing cards. Fuck that

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