RIP Gregory Issacs

Sad news of the Cool Ruler's death, Gregory Issacs.

Guardian link

Smoking

RIP it Up

I was saddened to hear today of Ari Up's death. The Slits were an important band, and only partly for their music. They gave punk an authentic female angle and a spirit that embraced 'crusty' long before that scene ever existed. Like many bands, they got worse the better they learnt how to play their instruments, (now that's a blog post list in waiting), but when they burned bright, they were truly brilliant. All you need is Cut, their fantastic first album. And their rendition of Heard It Through The Grapevine. When I found that 7", backing Typical Girls, at a car boot sale about 12 years ago, I played it back to back all day when I got it home. Although I'd heard it before, I felt like I was discovering music again. Took me back to when I heard the Buzzcocks Spiral Scratch EP for the first time at the tender age of 15 and the excitement it gave me. Grapevine would be on my desert island disc list.

I wanted to go to Chelsea

I spent the day in London today visiting 'must see' exhibitions with UCS graphic design students. I ended up at Tate Britain checking out the Muybridge show which I found much more engaging than I thought I would, but the main attraction was Process: The Working Practices of Barney Bubbles.

For those that don't know, Barney Bubbles created many of the sleeves for punk and post-punk pop favourites such as The Damned, Generation X, Ian Dury and The Blockheads, Elvis Costello & the Attractions, Nick Lowe, and was Stiff Records' designer in residence. Before this he had a history of designing record sleeves for Glastonbury Festival and Hawkwind, as well as creating light shows for Pink Floyd, which is where his name was coined, as he mixed oil, water and ink and projected this to form psychedelic 'bubble' back drops for live shows.



It is only in the last few years that he has been getting much deserved recognition as he preferred anonymity to fame during his working lifetime, with much of his work going unsigned. 27 years after his death, with Paul Gorman's excellent 'Reasons To Be Cheerful' biography (2008), and this show, Barney Bubbles is finally being seen as a hugely important figure in the history of graphic design.



Paul Gorman was on site this morning and together with Donald Smith, Director of Exhibitions at Chelsea Space, kindly gave an introduction to Barney's working life and practices to students. The show was put together on the basis that most of the finished outcomes, (the products) were displayed along the entrance ramp, with the focus being squarely placed on Bubbles working methods. Sketches, Letraset and Rotring artwork, overlays of tracing paper with notes to printers and PMTs were all given pride of place. Students were amazed, enthralled and daunted in equal measures by the fact all the artwork was produced by hand - Barney committed suicide 2 weeks before the introduction of the Apple Mac in 1983.



The show unfortunately finishes this coming Saturday (23 Oct) but find below more images and links to Paul Gorman's blog, the Chelsea Space website, and unusually for Dublog, a link to Amazon for Reasons To Be Cheerful book; go buy it.

I look forward to the coming weeks where this exhibition will form much debate and discussion among students about process on display, ideas informing application, application informing ideas, and old school design methods.















Links:
Barney Bubbles blog
Chelsea Space
Chelsea Space 'Process' images
Reasons To Be Cheerful biography

Good fucking design advice

Loving this: Good fucking design advice

Agit mail

This week, on the same day, I received 2 pieces of communication via snail mail and email from friends both stating that they saw these and thought of me. Not sure what that says about me, or them.


This postcard came from the William Morris house and gallery in Walthamstow and is self explanatory. Thanks Dan.


The second item came from my friend Liz, who titled it Westminster Dicks. Thanks Liz.

Mentor 1930

978-0-9567146

I'm one step closer to adding a publishing wing to Dubdog as I received my ISBN prefix through today. I've never, ever been so excited about numbers as I was when I got the email earlier today, being math phobic as I am. I now have an Excel file, (something else that is rare) with 10 shiny ISBN numbers awaiting something to be attached to them.

Next up is registering with Nielsen's online publishing service, which carries a 5 day wait, so I can register the paperback version of McJunk with its own ISBN.

As for the book itself, I've been refining the introduction again. It was my colleague Dave who told me that 'writing is rewriting', and how true he is. It is definitely improving with each draft and I'm pretty much there with most of it, except for the last paragraph that is. This I'm really not happy with at the moment but I'm fairly certain I'm within grasp of nailing it.

Lastly, I imported the text into the InDesign file yesterday and was relieved that the text still fits the space allocated for it despite these umpteen rewrites.

ISBNed

The current incarnation of the McJunk (large) cover, subject to change.

McJunk is a step closer to publication now that I've actually ordered ISBN numbers for it. I say 'numbers' because as a new publisher I can't buy a single ISBN, but have to order a batch of 10. As I'm publishing two versions of McJunk, I'll have to find eight other books to publish under the Dubdog moniker to use up the remaining ISBNs. Hmmm, I feel an anthology of Bum Gravy and Pindown lyrics coming on. Or maybe not.

The two versions will be:
McJunk (large), 200 x 250mm, hardback, 80pp, full page photographs printed on premium paper.
McJunk (regular), 200 x 250mm, paperback, 40pp, multiple photographs to a page, paper as yet undecided.

The large version will obviously be of superior quality and cost considerably more than the regular version. It will also be deleted after an as yet undecided number of sales.


Imprint page awaiting ISBN number

Once the ISBNs are through, there are barcodes to order, and then I'm pretty much ready to publish after a final proof read, sorting the folios and ordering a proof copy from Blurb.

As in previous posts about McJunk I've decried the slow progress of this publication. So I've decided smaller, but more regular bursts of activity are much more likely to get this project completed while I've got other more important responsibilities to deal with (i.e. paid work).

Updates to follow as progress advances.

Where's me jumper?

September has been super busy. After the wedding of some good friends of ours at the end of August, we've been to Brighton 3 times, taken in some art by the sea, been to a private view of some UCS graduate students (well done Luke, Nicki & Tom), grown a moustache for a stag do (me, not Claire), seen the reformed Pop Group in that there London, and given our bedroom over to Claire's daughter and grandson and so have been living out of our front room for the last week. Oh, and then there's the day jobs stretching into evenings & weekends as well, and getting side tracked writing the odd post here! All of which means I'm even more behind schedule with the McJunk book. I should never have made a brash deadline statement online about completing a personal project. What's frustrating is that it's 90% done - someone give me 4 days straight and I'll have it wrapped up. Never mind. Some sort of normality is due to return this week, whatever that is, and hopefully I should be able to plan in time to mop up the remaining 10%. Believe me, you'll be the first to know.

In the meantime, here are a few things that have caught my eye over the last month. Sorry, no tash shots, that's far too embarrassing, but feel free to check out my upper lip menagerie on the Dubdog Flickr photostream.

Art on the Prom, Felixstowe:



Poor Richard, or poor books?



Remixed ad. Reminds me of those plastic puzzles where you have to shift squares around to complete an image (I was always useless at them):



My Garden, Your Litter, the follow up to The Fall's Your Future, Our Clutter?



And finally, in my office this morning I was caught by my shadow as I was about to rush out of the house:



And now my favourite season of the year has arrived, can anyone tell me where I put my jumper?