There’s been a lot of talk about one of Liverpool’s most celebrated pop kids, Holly Johnson, and his exhibition at Museum of Liverpool. See my previous post for more information on that. But flying under the radar just over the water, another of the city’s legendary children is at the centre of his own archive of images… Total Stranger is …
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What’s ideal about being based in the north west of the UK is that most things aren’t far. I regularly hop on trains and head north or south to visit exhibitions in Glasgow or London. Still, sometimes it’s nice to be able to just get a taxi into town and, within 15 minutes, be immersed in something new, something wonderful. …
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Last night I attended a private view of ‘Beyond Van Gogh – the immersive experience’. This is a touring installation that until 24 July 2024 can be seen at the Exhibition Centre Liverpool, next door to the M&S Arena on the city’s beautiful waterfront. There’s been plenty already written about the show as it has already made its way across …
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ABOVE: Samples from the Andie Airfix/Satori portfolio along with a 16 year old me, wearing a Thompson Twins t-shirt featuring one of his classic logo designs. Graphic designer, painter and sleeve artist, Andie Airfix was born in Scotland but grew up in Warrington in the north west of England. After studying art and English literature at Chester teacher training college, …
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This episode of the podcast is a bit different… Instead of our usual, reverent look back at examples of the best in record sleeve creativity, we dig into its darkest and often unexplored corners of obscurity to expose some of the worst, or at best, most bizarre record sleeves ever created. This collection of more than 500 of ‘the worst …
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Hello and best wishes for the festive season. My gift to you is a brand new episode of the ‘Art on your sleeve’ podcast. In this episode I speak with Paula Benson and Paul West from Form. There’s a lot that I could say about this dynamic duo and their extraordinarily diverse pop portfolio, but it’s probably easier to let …
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I write a fair bit about graphic design and music, whether it’s for Classic Pop magazine, the ‘Art on your sleeve‘ podcast or just general musings in my dedicated Facebook group about the subject. It was record sleeves that made me want to be a graphic designer, tantalising me with their beguiling concepts and creativity. As a kid, before I …
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We are back, Back, BACK! A new season of the podcast is finally here, after an extended hiatus caused by a combination of grim things, too dispiriting to elaborate upon here. In this episode, I speak with Andy McCluskey, lead vocalist of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, or OMD, as they are more commonly known. Andy formed OMD with co-writer …
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We are living through some decidedly grim times right now – politically, economically and emotionally. Lurching from one disaster to the next, with Brexit, toxic Trumpism, COVID and a new cold war, my usual optimism is being severely challenged. Thankfully, we have Eurovision happening in Liverpool soon (a subject covered elsewhere in this blog) and on Friday 17 March we …
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If you just want images, they are below, but before that, we need some context… In my last blog post, I looked back at previous Eurovision Song Contests while we were waiting to hear who the host city would be in 2023. You can read about that HERE. Well… the news is now in, and against all odds, or certainly …
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