double bill

Listen to these two songs one after another, in this order, to make everything feel aligned in your life.

The Damned

I had another opportunity to work with the guys and girls of The Brickyard this week. I was commissioned for the poster for none other than The Damned. I have loved their (first) album "Damned Damned Damned" for a long time. Did you know that The Damned are the first uk punk band to ever release an album ("Damned Damned Damned", in 1977), a single ("Neat Neat Neat" b/w "New Rose", I believe, please correct me if I am wrong), and to tour America ("USA, USA, USA"). True story. Good work, The Damned! I once had to decide whether or not to buy an original copy of the "Damned Damned Damned" LP or "Inflammable Material" by Stiff Little Fingers. I chose Stiff Little Fingers. Needless to say, it was one of the most difficult decisions I have ever been forced to make.

After spending quite some time photoshopping in the shadows on the woman's dress and the bow on her chest I am rather craving doing something clean and typographic soon. I feel like i've been cheating on my love affair with Helvetica for a while now.

Anyway if you are in Carlisle around the 11th of August it's a definite must that you should shell out the £18 to catch some classic punk tunes and spooky vibes with The Damned. Watch this if you don't believe me:

(or go here for a three song, cooler version)

Roman Cieślewicz

(above image taken from Life website, thanks Life website!)

Nothing is new is a tireless adage.

Polish graphic designer and art director Roman Cieslewicz (b.1930-d.1996) managed to achieve almost everything visually I have ever tried to do, some 20 years before I was even born.

The work of many design icons/iconoclasts (and almost every single gig poster ever made) - from Brody to Victore to Reid to Kruger to Chantry - probably would not even exist without Cieslewicz having paved the way for proto-postmodern design during the mid 50s and 60s. By surrounding himself with artists (often surrealists) yet remaining grounded in graphics and dedicated to the beauty of print, Cieslewicz was able to take diverse influences and put them through his own visual blender, creating design for cultural industries and institutions that was keen to shake cages and ruffle feathers. However, what separates Cieslewicz from any of the (phenomenal) designers and art directors mentioned above is his timing. Brody, Victore, Reid, Kruger and Chantry are products of postmodernism: spinning punk 7"s or kicking against consumerism to carve out their art, Cieslewicz generated design that did these things before they were even thought of.

You can see the Roman Cieslewicz exhibition at the Royal College of Art until the 7th of August. It's free, so you would have to be literally insane not to go!

(Also, I apologise for the occasionally shaky iphone photos!)

Summer

jaime & sam