With a little help from my friends
It’s official, the Eurovision Song Contest is coming to the United Kingdom in 2023 as a replacement host for Ukraine which tragically remains under attack from Russia. The cities shortlisted have now been published; Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle and Sheffield and we’ll find out more in the autumn. These seven cities are all places I’m familiar with and …
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Episode 19 – David Storey
In this episode of Art on your sleeve, I speak with painter and former graphic designer, David Storey. David’s career designing record sleeves began in the 1970s when he landed a job straight out of design school working for Elton John’s Rocket Records. This position provided a crucial platform for him to build a career in the industry leading to …
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Episode 18 – International Podcast Day 2021
This episode of Art on your sleeve is another slight diversion from the usual format and was put together specifically to mark International Podcast Day which falls on 30 September every year. It is “…a celebration of the power of podcasts and a great opportunity to connect with fellow podcasters, podcast listeners, podcast enthusiasts and leaders in the podcasting industry.” Taken from: internationalpodcastday.com …
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1980s, Art on your sleeve, dazzle ships, echo and the bunnymen, Eurovision, Graphic Design, International Podcast Day, Nick Lowe, OMD, Pet Shop Boys, Queen, Record Sleeve Design
- September 30, 2021
What’s another year
Eurovision fans were made to wait two years due to COVID-19, but what a comeback 2021 proved to be. As usual, my favourites faltered at the first fence or ended up crash diving into the darkest depths of the final scoreboard, but even these things couldn’t distract from the fun and excitement. This month has really felt like we’ve turned …
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Episode 17 – Bill Smith
In this episode of Art on your sleeve, I speak with graphic designer and art director, Bill Smith. Since the 1970s, Bill has been one of the busiest designers servicing the music industry and he’s worked on so many record sleeves that a book has been published celebrating his amazing portfolio. In the introduction to the show I read from …
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Abacab, Alison Moyet, Art, Bill Smith, Bill Smith Studio, Design, Fredie Mercury, Genesis, Graphic Design, hounds of love, Kate Bush, music, Paul Weller, Queen, Record Sleeve Design, Red Planet Books, Robert Smith, Sigue Sigue Sputnik, The Cure, The Jam, Thomas Dolby, Toyah
- May 20, 2021
Liverpool 8 against apartheid
31 years ago today, Nelson Mandela was released from prison. In 1990 the world was a very different place; I was not long into my first job and aggrieved about local and global injustices. I’d just ‘come out’, discovered animal rights and gone vegetarian, there was an unequal age of consent, the AIDS pandemic was raging and Liverpool was just …
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LGBT History Month 2021
February is LGBT History Month, and at the end of last year Museum of Liverpool sent out an online call for local LGBT personal histories with plans to display a curated range of seldom-told tales of the city in commemoration of the month. The brief was to use visual and written media to tell a personal story about one’s life, to …
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Hope and resistance
At the start of 2020, Soft Octopus Design Studio was commissioned by Liverpool Hope University to work on a collaboration with Tate Liverpool. Titled Hope and Resistance, the exhibition’s aim was to present the artefacts, stories and artwork of young people living on the Palestinian West Bank who had responded to the question – What do you want to tell the …
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Episode 15 – Simon Halfon
This episode is an audio supplement to a six-page Pop Art feature I wrote for Classic Pop magazine, issue 27, published February/March 2017. This issue of the magazine is now out of print but it is available to purchase in digital format from: https://pocketmags.com/classic-pop-magazine/febmar-17 From the horse’s mouth, or the designers website: Simon Halfon has been designing artwork since the …
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Being Boring – Pet Shop Boys
Being Boring, a single by Pet Shop Boys is 30 years old today. This is one of my favourite songs by one of my favourite pop groups and as such, I felt I needed to mark the occasion. What better way than with an episode of Art on your sleeve.
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