Campaign for Barney Bubbles Google doodle
US designer Vic Fieger has launched a campaign for Google to feature the “doodle” he has created by amalgamating various Barney Bubbles’ graphic devices.
Vic would like Google to run his doodle on July 30 – what would be Barney Bubbles’ 68th birthday.
This what Vic has sent to Google’s doodle team:
Hello,
My name is Vic Fieger. I am a font designer and graphic artist.
Not many people know about Barney Bubbles, as the great majority of his work was uncredited. He doesn’t have the name recognition of his contemporaries in art and album design, such as Peter Saville or Hipgnosis.
But his influence on modern design is unmatched; his creations for acts like Elvis Costello, Ian Dury, the Psychedelic Furs and countless other recording artists gave rise to many of the graphic motifs of the 1980s. Only recently has he begun to receive the recognition he deserved with the release of the book Reasons To Be Cheerful by Paul Gorman. Ten years before this, two of his covers appeared in Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell’s 100 Best Album Covers compilation.
I was hoping you might be interested in posting a Doodle paying tribute to Barney on his birthday, July 30. I’ve attached one I’ve created the other day, using an amalgam of some of his graphic devices from various pieces. Even if a Doodle is only posted in the UK, where most of the acts he worked with were based, it would still be very much appreciated by lovers of design and modern art.
I understand that Google is a very busy company and that your calendar is probably already full. Still, I do hope you consider my proposal.
Thank you for your time, and for the services you provide.
Vic Fieger
Join Vic’s campaign by writing to proposals@google.com referencing his letter and using the mail header:
Barney Bubbles for Google doodle on July 30, 2010
Tags: doodle, Google, July 30, Vic Fieger
July 14th, 2010 at 11:13 am
It doesn’t have to be my creation that they run. I left the option open in my email to them in case they need to make their own, for legal or technical reasons or what-have-you. Whatever pays homage to Barney is tops with me.
Really, though I made my case for Barney’s importance to album design with the mention of having two entries in the 100 Best Album Covers collection, I still think this is a longshot. It would be nice to see what other artists out there would be willing to bring to the table for creations honoring BB, though!
July 14th, 2010 at 11:46 am
Be great if it was your’s, Vic. Care to talk us through the elements/devices you used?
July 14th, 2010 at 11:43 pm
The idea started with the rear of the Forever Now sleeve, and the Haettenschweiler letterform outlines in a field of pink and pale blue squares. Barney really seemed to like the square stood on one corner. The colors that ended up going into the pic were sort of a halfway-point between those paler colors and Google’s bold primaries.
Besides the square, the other shape that seemed most prominent in Barney’s work was the paint splatter (Armed Forces, various Ian Dury paraphernalia, and others). Having matching splotches for the double O was a bit of a problem at first — they had to be far enough apart so they wouldn’t suggest the MasterCard logo. They also had to be circular enough to suggest Os, and trying to emulate the red spots on The Parkerilla seemed to be the best way to go. The L was also going to be similar to the Parkerilla Ls, but it looked weak and just didn’t work with the rest. The one that ended up in the “Doodle” was supposed to look more like the Almost Blue L, but as dripping paint rather than torn paper. Luckily, Google has that gray horizontal line, so the L kind of looks like it’s leaking out from there.
The three remaining letters just happened to be similar enough to use the same shape for. That wasn’t a BB-inspired device at the time, but once it was done, seeing the black shape over the square three times in succession was a bit like Get Happy!!. Moving the black outlines over a bit as if they were printed out of register was a nod to the inner sleeve photo of Music For Pleasure and the “Happy Man” graphic for Get Happy!!
The jagged pink stripe was used to tie the squares together and make the whole thing look more unified, rather than elements that happened to wander in on each other. It was meant to suggest the paintbrush motif from the Do It Yourself labels and adverts. Pink was chosen because Barney’s favorite colors (according to Reasons To Be Cheerful, of course!) were pink and black, neither of which are found in the original Google logo.
One thing more; this isn’t meant to be my interpretation of how Barney would have put together a “Doodle”. It’s just my tribute to him, using his methods and design tics from existing sources, like how he made Music For Pleasure’s cover as an homage to Kandinsky. If Barney were commissioned to turn out a Google logo, his would be infinitely more interesting and clever than anything I could come up with.
July 16th, 2010 at 8:01 am
Hi Vic
Thanks for running through your tribute. I really liked your use of the quadrant – look out for BB’s accelerated use of it from 1980 onwards, particularly in press ads…
July 18th, 2010 at 11:19 am
His work was never anything short of inspired: his artistry on both Damned and Blockhead products (to name but two) was, and remains to this day, iconic. Vic, I’d love to see my name- John Medd – in BB font!
Take care
John