It's a Thursday evening, and while other members of the house are either playing Minecraft or watching the Golden State Warriors vs. _______ (?), I'm keeping myself entertained by launching a little creative exercise I've plotted for ages but never acted upon. Its premise is a simple one: grab little bits of design (record sleeves, newspaper advertisements, book dust covers, ticket stubs, matchbooks) and perform a quick presto change-o. Straightening some of the lines, bending others, and giving the overall presentation a rethink. No disrespect to the original designer is implied or intended, and in most cases, I have a genuine fondness for the source imagery and the object/item it describes. Example 001: the Adverts' 1979 RCA single, My Place/New Church, pictured below. No artist is credited. That is, in fact, a scan of my personal copy (I was never able to get the price tag adhesive off without inflicting further damage).
So, it's a perfectly serviceable sleeve that depicts frontman T.V. Smith pictured next to his giant 1979 wood-grained television set, and surrounded by paper ephemera of various rock 'n' roll sorts. The illustration plays with the geometry of his bed-sitting room (the subject of the tune) and is printed in tomato orange and indigo ink. You know what you're getting: punk rock rendered in Rapidograph.
My fantasy piece (or is it fan art?) is below.
It's in full color, but then, RCA could have afforded it. Something about the tune and its imagery led me to think of musty, peeling, and very English-looking wallpaper that strips away to reveal (a-ha!) newspaper adverts and clippings beneath. The little geometric rendering of interior space has survived into the new version as a tiny glyph between the two words of the song title, and the band name is presented in a typeface that suggests the long-gone late 1970s. Intended to look discarded when brand new.
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