I have read the Paul Gorman 'Reasons to be cheerful' book, cover to cover and this has informed the additional research I have conducted on the internet. For the Moving Image piece I want to gather as many original images as possible to make it feel authentic.
Silver machine Hawkwinds biggest hit
   Barney Bubbles designed the logo for Radar     THIS WALL PAPER COVER CAME WITH 48 DESIGNS NO LESS - THAT IS MARKETING FOR YOU! |
My favourites are:
The Damned Music is for pleasure (Kandinsky inspired)
Roadhawk by Hawkwind 1976 no doubt inspired by Cassandre
Your generation Generation X (fronted by Billy Idol) inspired by El Lissitzkys catalogue cover for an exhibition of Russian art 1929
Barney was famous for providing the full package ie not only record sleeves but posters, stickers, sleeve inners, free singles with albums. He always especially with Stiff tried to package uniquely ie First 5000 copies of The Damned damned dammed ( Stiff needed to sell 5000 to break even!) he printed on the back of album a photo of Eddie and The Hot Rods instead of The Damned.
An example of the extra packaging below, BTW the 'white ring' on front on back is deliberate alluding to the 12 inch inside.
Interesting crit of 'Reasons to be cheerful' and analysis of BB Graphic Designer v Art on Design Observer by Rick Poyner (Steven Heller comments).
Barneys best friend since art college in the early sixties has written a blog - David Wills
Animation of Armed Forces on You Tube
A letter Barney Bubbles wrote to his friend Tony Hyde (from NME article)
Some touching memories and quotes from his friends which really present the enormous respect he generated
A friend was prolific Rock photographer Keith Morris
Rebecca and Mike are the biggest collector of Barney stuff and I think they are a design team intriguing website!
Rebecca & Mike
Artist, Designer
Rebecca and Mike is a London-based creative partnership, whose process of creating visual communication involves analysing aspects of human cognition, behaviour, culture and experience. In 2003 IDEA magazine clarified their practice as one that, "defies definition in existing categories like product and graphic design, and reveals new angles of the essential nature of phenomena that lie before our eyes. They drop methods from cognitive science and statistics into the grammar of their designs, resulting in projects that clarify issues in the same way that adding one line to a diagram can make the solution to a mathematical problem seem simple. They have worked on projects for Paul McCartney, Trevor Beattie, the UK Government, Cadburys and many other industry leaders
From David Wills website
'rebecca and mike
David has asked us to write a few words about these pictures of the exhibition, so here goes:
In 2001 we staged this exhibition of Barney Bubbles work in central London.
The premise of the exhibition was to show what Barney did for the English underground scene in the 1960s and early 1970s, and to also show how that underground thread continued to permeate his work throughout the later period of his work. (Often his later work is seen as ‘separate’ to his early work, a misunderstanding that has been commonly held by the establishment cultural commentators that decide our – the people’s – history.)
We also kept the exhibition free of any corporate sponsorship and backing to remain true to the independent and pioneering spirit of Barney (which basically means we paid for it all ourself… with thanks to Tim Milne for the free exhibition space, and Trevor Hughes for his help too).
Literally the exhibition comprised of 40 8ftx4ft boards (some of which were double-sided) with a 6000 word essay running through the entire installation. We approached the exhibition with an uncompromising “anti short-cut appreciation of Barney Bubbles” stance, and were delighted to find that yes, people would spend two hours in an exhibition reading loads and loads of words! A typical exhibition is structured so that pictures are shown, and a small panel of text supports the picture. We kind of inverted that so that the pictures were almost just supports to the text. Looking at medieval manuscripts in the British Library was one of the things that gave us that idea. Thankfully it also enabled us to avoid the traditional ‘framed pictures on white walls’ approach, which seemed to us to be a display status-quo of the kind that Barney would always have fought hard against.
As testament to Barney’s status, we got a lot of support from magazines who helped publicise the exhibition by writing short articles or giving us good placement in their listings (Metro and The Big Issue particularly so; and The Face, Sleazenation, The Guardian and so on). Hopefully a good time was had by all who came. For those who didn’t make it, hopefully these pictures will provide some pleasure.
David Medalla won the award for most artistic contribution to the visitors book on the opening night, and it was great to see folk like Martin Stone, Larry Wallis, Nik Turner, Brian Griffin, Jake Riviera and many many more walk through the door. Now these pics are online, that door’s just been slightly prised open again!'
In 2001 we staged this exhibition of Barney Bubbles work in central London.
The premise of the exhibition was to show what Barney did for the English underground scene in the 1960s and early 1970s, and to also show how that underground thread continued to permeate his work throughout the later period of his work. (Often his later work is seen as ‘separate’ to his early work, a misunderstanding that has been commonly held by the establishment cultural commentators that decide our – the people’s – history.)
We also kept the exhibition free of any corporate sponsorship and backing to remain true to the independent and pioneering spirit of Barney (which basically means we paid for it all ourself… with thanks to Tim Milne for the free exhibition space, and Trevor Hughes for his help too).
Literally the exhibition comprised of 40 8ftx4ft boards (some of which were double-sided) with a 6000 word essay running through the entire installation. We approached the exhibition with an uncompromising “anti short-cut appreciation of Barney Bubbles” stance, and were delighted to find that yes, people would spend two hours in an exhibition reading loads and loads of words! A typical exhibition is structured so that pictures are shown, and a small panel of text supports the picture. We kind of inverted that so that the pictures were almost just supports to the text. Looking at medieval manuscripts in the British Library was one of the things that gave us that idea. Thankfully it also enabled us to avoid the traditional ‘framed pictures on white walls’ approach, which seemed to us to be a display status-quo of the kind that Barney would always have fought hard against.
As testament to Barney’s status, we got a lot of support from magazines who helped publicise the exhibition by writing short articles or giving us good placement in their listings (Metro and The Big Issue particularly so; and The Face, Sleazenation, The Guardian and so on). Hopefully a good time was had by all who came. For those who didn’t make it, hopefully these pictures will provide some pleasure.
David Medalla won the award for most artistic contribution to the visitors book on the opening night, and it was great to see folk like Martin Stone, Larry Wallis, Nik Turner, Brian Griffin, Jake Riviera and many many more walk through the door. Now these pics are online, that door’s just been slightly prised open again!'
He also made a set of stickers as part of the marketing campaign ' warning: this is not This years model' These were stuck on phone boxes, electricty generators
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