My SP Designs

A friend of mine from Novi Sad, Serbia sent me a present. It is a single vinyl record (SP) that I designed for a Novi Sad band Labaratorija, "Virgin 69" in 1982. From my hundreds of record designs I think I had the most fun with SPs. Starting with my first SP for Prljavo kazaliste, "My Father Was in the War" in 1979, to my last SP for Rage Against the Machine, "Bulls on Parade" in 1996. The reason for this is probably because at that time everybody paid less attention to SPs than to LPs. That gave me a chance to have a little bit more fun.

And probably for the same reason, some of these SPs are in the MOMA’s collection in New York and were displayed in the Making Music Modern: Design for Ear and Eye show.

 

 

"Trust Elvis" by Paula Scher

My recent acquisition, two different sizes of Paula Scher's poster "Trust Elvis" from 1979.  Paula designed "Trust Elvis" along with "Best of Jazz" for CBS Records and they are probably her most rare and iconic early posters.

'The Tipalet Experience' by Milton Glaser

My recent acquisition, an extremely rare concert flyer/poster by Milton Glaser from 1969. 

'The Tipalet Experience' was a one-day show sponsored by Muriel Cigars. The show included appearances by Procol Harum, The Staple Singers, The Cryan' Shames and Rotary Connection (featuring Minnie Ripperton). It was held at the Auditorium Theatre in Chicago, USA, on 21st March 1969.

 

"Paul Revere and The Raiders" by Milton Glaser

My recent acquisition, Paul Revere and The Raiders extremely rare poster by Milton Glaser for Columbia Records, from 1968.

 

My recent acquisition, "Lotus" by Santana

Lotus is a 1974 live LP album by the band Santana, recorded in Osaka, Japan in July 1973. The Welcome album recording sessions were completed shortly before this concert, and that album was later released in November. Lotus was originally released in 1974 as a triple vinyl LP in Japan only. This version of the album was later released internationally. 

This amazingly complex and beautiful LP is designed by the leading Japanese designer Tadanori Yokoo. 

Here, here, and here, you can read my past posts about Tadanori.

 

"M.Frog" by Milton Glaser

I just acquired this unusual LP record from 1973 by M.Frog (Jean Yves Labat). The album sleeve is unusual because on the front of the sleeve a page of a pamphlet is attached, which usually is inside of the sleeve. 

 
The pamphlet includes an attempt by Labatt to produce a way of writing musical notation using colour and graph paper. 

 
What is really special to me is that it was designed by Milton Glaser.

 

 

Rolling Stone: The Illustrated Portraits

I just received a new book, Rolling Stone: The Illustrated Portraits.

"The book is a collection of five decades of portrait illustrations from the magazine's archives and with focus on more contemporary artists and issues, this stunning book collects more than 200 of the most iconic illustrations to have graced its pages--from portraits of major cultural figures (from Bob Dylan to Barack Obama, Oprah to Madonna) to depictions of key moments in recent history (from Woodstock to Trump's election). Some of the greatest names in art and design have defined the magazine's illustrated lexicon, from modern heroes like Milton Glaser and Ralph Steadman to subversive contemporary artists such as Christoph Niemann and Mark Ryden."

I am pleased that my portrait of Billy Corgan from The Smashing Pumpkins is included in the book.

Bulls On Parade T-shirt

 

I just came across an unpacked in pristine condition T-shirt of Rage Against the Machine from 1996.

On the back of the T-shirt they used an image I created for their CD, Bulls on Parade.

 More here.

 

 

 

Lovesick Skateboards

I created this illustration for Steven Heller, who was the art director of the book review in the New York Times in 1993.

Soon after, I was contacted by someone from Rage Against The Machine to see if I would allow them to use this image for their banners on stage and T-shirts. They had already been familiarized with my work, because the bass player, Tim Commerford, already had a tattoo of my work on his arm. This started our collaboration together for some years to come.

The T-shirt became quite popular and at the time I saw young people wearing them. One of these young people was Aleks Lewandowski from Lovesick Skateboards. Aleks recently contacted me to see if he could use that very same image from almost 30 years ago on one of his skateboards. And of course, because he wanted to reflect that period of that time again, so he also created a T-shirt.

A few days ago I received a package with a few skate decks and T-shirts with my art on them. What is even more important to me, there was a very sweet hand-written note from Aleks that I am posting below without his permission.

Getting this note today was worth the creation of the work itself nearly 30 years ago.

MTV T-shirt

In 1991, I designed this T-shirt for MTV. At that time MTV was still big and mighty. They gave me a couple of T-shirts which were lost over time. Even one of them ended up in the Rock and Roll Cafe in Zagreb, Croatia.

And now almost 30 years later I managed to get one in perfect condition.