Stickers, a top-ranking new book about the enduring art of the most immediate of rock & roll ephemera, provides an opportunity to show a selection of Barney Bubbles’ forays into this area of design.

Stickers is compiled by expat Brit DB Burkeman, who, pausing only to publish one of his rare shots of the Sex Pistols live in 1977, mentions in his introduction that a chance encounter with Reasons To Be Cheerful enabled him to trace Barney Bubbles as the link between the visual audacity of Hawkwind and the new wave/post-punk scene.

Burkeman’s tome covers the waterfront, from Bubbles, Jamie Reid, Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville to  Fresh Jive, Fuct, Shephard Fairey and beyond.

A great feature at the back of the book are the pages of contemporary stickers just waiting to adorn a clean surface.

Buy your copy of Stickers here.

Along with the new edition of Reasons To Be Cheerful, there are a host of books out this autumn which doff their hats to the design legacy of Barney Bubbles.

Volume, the new collection of writings by Kenneth FitzGerald, is an entertaining, erudite and accessible account of the the US design critic’s abiding interest in the relationship between graphic design, music and art.

The essays, which muse on such subjects as the impact of the writings of Lester Bangs and Brian Eno’s view of culture as a series of intersecting axes, range from the self-published to those which originally appeared in Emigre and Eye.

“It’s unavoidable to include music when considering many of the prominent figures and movements in graphic design,” writes FitzGerald in his introduction.

“Design for music has set trends in the field for decades. Reid Miles‘ album covers for Blue Note created a form language that suffuses all areas of design production.”

A peroration on the passing of vinyl represents a mis-step; obituaries such as this look distinctly premature in the light of the reappraisal of the format now gathering pace.

FitzGerald is back on-the-money when he points out that recent years have revealed certain “masters of the form” to be overall exemplars of graphic design, describing Barney Bubbles as “the definitive album cover designer, endlessly inventive and astoundingly prolific”.

Volume: Writings On Graphic Design, Music, Art & Culture by Kenneth FitzGerald is available here.

The enhanced, revised and updated new edition of Reasons To Be Cheerful is published in the UK this week.

With a remixed cover, the fully illustrated 224-page second edition of the acclaimed biography features many new elements.

There are nearly 60 fresh images in the new book: letters, postcards and photographs as well as sketches, designs and finished artwork for record sleeves, posters, stickers, drumheads, etc.

Paul Gorman has written a new author’s note and afterword summing up the impact of the first edition, and the commentary now includes a chat with foremost US designer Art Chantry about the relevance of Barney Bubbles’ artistic legacy to contemporary design. The new edition is published in the US in spring 2011.

A host of new contributors have been interviewed, from Wreckless Eric to “Record John” Cowell – Bubbles’ one-time room-mate and the half brother of Simon Cowell.

All chapters have been updated with freshly researched information, including never-previously published facts and quotes about Bubbles’ time at art school and his first full-time job at leading British commercial art studio Michael Tucker + Associates.

As an EXCLUSIVE, we are offering signed copies of the new book only from this blog, priced £18.99 plus £5 p&p UK.

Mail for info on postage to continental Europe and rest of world.

To buy your copy click on the button below or visit HERE for details.

Third-year graphics communications students  at Chelsea have responded to Process with a stunning set of works which formed a mini-exhibition at the college last week.

Course director Geoff Thomas-Shaw’s brief was to create three-dimensional objects in response to the show.

Mindful of Bubbles’ educational experience working with paper and card as part of a display course at Twickenham School Of Technology in the late 50s and early 60s, Thomas-Shaw’s brief also paid attention to Bubbles’ work in the pre-digital age.

Thus, students were steered towards producing designs “analogue in terms of origination, utilising paper-based materials to reflect the non-dependency of digital influences in Barney Bubbles’ original artwork”.

Recognising some of the designer’s primary concerns, Thomas-Shaw also recommended they consider Bubbles’ use of scale, colour, texture and mode of display.

Chelsea Space director Donald Smith and I are bowled over by the quality and vision of the results.

“I’m incredibly impressed by the ways in which the students interpreted the brief; by their skill, wit and dexterity; and also by how well they had seemed to understand the original work,” says Donald Smith. “Their exhibition is impressive in its own right.”

Process is on until this Saturday (October 23).
Come along and say hi.

Photos: Donald Smith.

Today Process received a visit from a very special group of students.

They are on the foundation graphics course at south-west London’s Kingston University. “The exhibition has particular resonance for us,” says lecturer Andy Cade.  “We run this course from a studio in Richmond Upon Thames College, formerly Twickenham Art School.”

It is here that Barney Bubbles (then Colin Fulcher) studied for his National Diploma in Design (NDD) between 1958 and 1963.

I and Chelsea Space director Donald Smith angled our talk about the show around the vocational course Bubbles undertook and how this helped form his practices when he came to problem-solve on behalf of his mainly music business clients later in life.

With some of Bubbles’ fellow Twickenham students coming in for their own private view next week it has been great to connect with different generations from his alma mater.

Photos: Martina Gonano

Conversations with students, lecturers and practitioners over recent days have confirmed how the show is surfing the current desire for “analogue” approaches to design.

During presentations yesterday to students from London College Of Communications and Chelsea we set Barney Bubbles’ work in the context of the golden age of vinyl record sleeve design.

“Our students found the presentations really inspiring,” says Monica Biagioli of LCC’s design faculty. “Many will be coming back on their own to explore the exhibition further.”

They and other visitors have responded with delight to the hand-crafted nature of the preparatory artwork on display.

Of course, this was by way of necessity; Barney Bubbles died just two months before the introduction of the Apple Mac (and before the widespread application of desktop publishing in the 80s), but nevertheless such practices are not only back on the curricula but also again filtering into contemporary graphic design.

This has been noted in a comment on the Creative Review report on the show: “Don’t let anyone at Mother see this – they think they discovered the ultra-retro feel,” writes “Devilgate”.

On a page in the Chelsea Space visitors’ book, New York designer Aleksandar Maćašev sums up the reaction to the show we’ve received this week from a flood of visitors, including waves of graphics students, a major British artist, Ian Dury’s biographer, the owner of the country’s biggest spoof news site, one of rock music’s leading record sleeve designers (who has incorporated a section on Barney Bubbles in a new book), and, of course, Billy Bragg.

Maćašev wrote that a visit to the exhibition was the top of his to-do list while in London, and, judging by his response, we did not disappoint. Artist Daniel Sturgis, who has openly acknowledged his debt to Bubbles, was similarly complimentary, as were Will Birch and Paul Stokes, one of the men behind The Daily Mash.

Studying the ramp wall exhibits with Will Birch.

Will Birch asks about the book and magazine display.

With Paul Stokes (far right) and Chelsea students.

And designer Richard Evans, who has been art director for The Who for more than 35 years, came along for a viewing, bringing with him his exciting new book Art Of The Album Cover, which has a section dedicated to Barney Bubbles’ achievements in this sphere.

Richard Evans discusses process with Chelsea Space assistant curator Barbara Elting and assistant Martina Gonano.

Richard Evans with his new book open at the section on Barney Bubbles’ album sleeve designs.

Students from courses at Chelsea, Hastings, London College Of Communications and the Vienna International School took their time to absorb the insights into Bubbles’ working methods provided by the exhibits in the main room.

Students from the Vienna International School.

Students from London College Of Communications.

Students from Chelsea College Of Art & Design.

“I found it fascinating and informative (more than most of the LDF and ADF!),”  writes Jonathan from Sussex Coast College Hastings. “Because of the layout, you get the sense of ‘this is his work’ and then you walk round the corner and…’this is how it was done’. It’s not just a show of his finished pieces – it goes deeper than that.”

Process is on until October 23.

Photos: Donald Smith.

Process is feature in today’s Guardian Guide as a pick of new exhibitions around the country. Of course John – who worked alongside Barney at Frendz and danced on Hawkwind’s Space Ritual tour – meant Nick Lowe, not Drake.

The image is the artwork for the “Hamer & Sickle” logo Barney Bubbles created for Lowe’s 1979 album Labour Of Lust, spin-off single Cracking Up and music press ads/tour promotion etc (Nick had recently come into proud possession of the Hamer bass which Bubbles “snapped” into three).

Copies of the 24-page Barney Bubbles exhibition booklet are now available exclusively from this site.

Click on the Process exhibition booklet link in the right hand column.

Featuring the cover image of the ingenious hammer & sickle artwork for Nick Lowe’s 1979 album Labour Of Lust, the illustrated booklet includes:

• Title sticker (in ‘process magenta’)
• Introduction by author Paul Gorman
• Overview of Barney Bubbles’ design practices
• Photograph of Barney Bubbles creating set design for cover of Carlene Carter’s Musical Shapes
• Letter to Barney Bubbles from client Line Records
• Design for The M!ss!ng L!nk tattoo for The Damned drummer Rat Scabies
• 18 images including original artwork, sketches and photography for Elvis Costello, Dave Edmunds, Hawkwind, Clive Langer & The Boxes and Whirlwind

PRICE INCLUDING POSTAGE
Postage to UK £6.00 Postage to Europe £6.50 Postage Worldwide £7.00

PRICE INCLUDING POSTAGE
Postage to UK £6.00 Postage to Europe £6.50 Postage Worldwide £7.00

Process: The working practices of Barney Bubbles uses the three areas of Chelsea Space to guide visitors through the methods by which this master designer realised his audacious creations.

And there’s a continuous soundtrack of the music for which he designed, from Cressida to Costello, from Hawkwind to The Damned, from Iggy Pop & James Williamson to Red Dirt.

In the entrance to Chelsea Space is selected ephemera – adverts, badges, music press ads, stickers – as well as books, magazines and other finished artwork and designs, including the rug made in the image of a panel on the cover of Brewing Up With Billy Bragg.

There is also a showreel of 10 of the videos directed by Bubbles (including two never publicly displayed before: Incendiary Device and Darling, Let’s Have Another Baby for Johnny Moped).

A face-off is conducted between Elvis Costello (in 1977’s Warholian 60″ x 40″ Live Stiffs poster) and Chuck Berry (in the form of the wall-mounted sculpture created by Bubbles for music publisher Peter Barnes) at each end of the ramp.

On the ramp wall are posters, sleeves and other exhibits denoting approaches, recurrent themes and areas such as art direction, colour usage, application of symbols, photographic treatment, geometric arrangement, etc.

In the main room there is no finished artwork, excepting a copy of Damned Damned Damned with it’s deliberate printing error, and an NME Book Of Modern Music to demonstrate from whence Bubbles was taking his design leads at the time of production.

Sketches and proposals, along with personal effects, influences, paintings and sketchbooks rest on plinths and trestles colour-schemed to a typically exuberant Bubbles palette.

The walls are lined with pen and ink artwork, PMTs (Photo Mechanical Transfers), proofs, proposals, paste-ups, photography, etc. There’s a guide to the technical aspects of producing artwork in the pre-digital age, as well as a professional CV.

If you get the chance, do drop by; we’re around a lot of the time so can be on hand to talk you through the show and answer any questions.

Video and music track listings for the show are available here.

All photos Donald Smith.