Ocky Milk's baby teeth
Mar. 22nd, 2006 08:01 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomusA few tweaks, morphs, flips and twitters (mostly by that extraordinary Dadaist of sound, John Talaga) aside, my 2006 album Ocky Milk is finished. On the audio side, anyway. Something now assumes a looming importance: the sleeve.
Luckily one of Britain's best graphic designers, James Goggin, has once again agreed to the commission.
James made the Otto Spooky sleeve, and documents it here. He's also responsible for many of the posters and catalogues for Tate Modern shows. Amazingly, Otto Spooky was the RCA graduate's first published record sleeve. Its cables-and-tape theme inspired designer Daniel Eatock to make a series of short film loops of his studio, a trail of colours, shapes and letters prompted by the sleeve and texts and lectures by Ryan Gander, and unveiled at a workshop at the Werkplaats Typografie in Holland earlier this year.
Here (left) is the preliminary sketch James has come up with for Ocky Milk. Just to illustrate how it looks colorised, I've added some colours based on a photograph of a shelf of beautiful books I took in the Venice apartment of Nikolas Montaldi, one of the organisers of my recent concerts there. The sketch uses Milton Glaser's 1968 font Baby Teeth, of which the only available digitized commercial version is a copy called Bebit.
I feel some sort of family tie to Milton Glaser because the veteran designer shares a building with Mirko Ilic, who's very generously hosting all my books and records in a corner of his studio (they'll be shipped to Berlin in summer). In 2003 Mirko introduced me to Glaser, one of the giants of the design world, a political radical perhaps most famous for his "I (heart) New York" logo, but author of a great deal besides (for instance, the quirky illustrations in an Ogden Nash book I just bought at the Used Book Project).
My original idea for the Ocky Milk sleeve was of some visual identity that would tie it in to Oskar Tennis Champion and Otto Spooky (this is the third installment, after all, in my "Berlin trilogy", my "Stories of O" series, records with black-based sleeves, names beginning with the letter "O", and sonic "reproduction" by John Talaga). I wanted the letters in Baby Teeth to "cut holes" in the black ground and drop away to either pure blocks of colour or pictures of various things. James immediately suggested die-cutting the letters, which would have been great, because it would have referred to Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari's children's books and games. But I don't think we have anything like the budget for punching holes in the card, alas.
Since picking it out as the font for the Ocky sleeve, I've (of course) noticed other people using Baby Teeth. For instance, Supermundane, currently exhibiting their work in the gallery at Edinburgh design space Analogue, chose a (version of?) the face for their logo for Paper + Glue Records. Well, there are only so many typefaces in the world. It's what you do with them that matters. And James Goggin will do something wonderful with Ocky's baby teeth.
Luckily one of Britain's best graphic designers, James Goggin, has once again agreed to the commission. James made the Otto Spooky sleeve, and documents it here. He's also responsible for many of the posters and catalogues for Tate Modern shows. Amazingly, Otto Spooky was the RCA graduate's first published record sleeve. Its cables-and-tape theme inspired designer Daniel Eatock to make a series of short film loops of his studio, a trail of colours, shapes and letters prompted by the sleeve and texts and lectures by Ryan Gander, and unveiled at a workshop at the Werkplaats Typografie in Holland earlier this year.
Here (left) is the preliminary sketch James has come up with for Ocky Milk. Just to illustrate how it looks colorised, I've added some colours based on a photograph of a shelf of beautiful books I took in the Venice apartment of Nikolas Montaldi, one of the organisers of my recent concerts there. The sketch uses Milton Glaser's 1968 font Baby Teeth, of which the only available digitized commercial version is a copy called Bebit.
I feel some sort of family tie to Milton Glaser because the veteran designer shares a building with Mirko Ilic, who's very generously hosting all my books and records in a corner of his studio (they'll be shipped to Berlin in summer). In 2003 Mirko introduced me to Glaser, one of the giants of the design world, a political radical perhaps most famous for his "I (heart) New York" logo, but author of a great deal besides (for instance, the quirky illustrations in an Ogden Nash book I just bought at the Used Book Project).
My original idea for the Ocky Milk sleeve was of some visual identity that would tie it in to Oskar Tennis Champion and Otto Spooky (this is the third installment, after all, in my "Berlin trilogy", my "Stories of O" series, records with black-based sleeves, names beginning with the letter "O", and sonic "reproduction" by John Talaga). I wanted the letters in Baby Teeth to "cut holes" in the black ground and drop away to either pure blocks of colour or pictures of various things. James immediately suggested die-cutting the letters, which would have been great, because it would have referred to Bruno Munari and Enzo Mari's children's books and games. But I don't think we have anything like the budget for punching holes in the card, alas.
Since picking it out as the font for the Ocky sleeve, I've (of course) noticed other people using Baby Teeth. For instance, Supermundane, currently exhibiting their work in the gallery at Edinburgh design space Analogue, chose a (version of?) the face for their logo for Paper + Glue Records. Well, there are only so many typefaces in the world. It's what you do with them that matters. And James Goggin will do something wonderful with Ocky's baby teeth.
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(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 01:18 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 01:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 02:05 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 02:12 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 02:22 pm (UTC)Well, the emotions and textures are very different, but I see what you mean, it's the line-breaks and the graphics-domination.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 02:31 pm (UTC)you should add a picture of you in your white robes riding a unicorn over a rainbow or something.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 03:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 03:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 03:45 pm (UTC)Second, "...who's very generously hosting all my books and records in a corner of his studio..."
I absolutely love how the word "hosting"--like the word "access"--has morphed into a beautiful word with so many overlapping meanings...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 04:12 pm (UTC)This is totally off topic and all that but your “occasional radio show” has come up on my iPod two days running now and I’ve listened right through and loved it all including your very softly, softly voice which is such a joy because I like hearing the information but I hate DJs usually because their voices get on my nerves.
Please phone the authorities and get yourself on the Digital Audio Dab thing in the kitchen and the car! Please.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 04:18 pm (UTC)Love Ogden Nash.
Babyteeth always seems to work best when it is employed as the main image. Palette's pinks, puttys and greens are nice and warm, too.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 04:58 pm (UTC)yours,
-Douglas Kong
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 06:02 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 06:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 06:31 pm (UTC)Just.... Some thoughts I got out of looking at that cover art suggestion...
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 06:50 pm (UTC)Nice colours as well, a bit like early eighties English bathroom fittings.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 07:13 pm (UTC)Just be careful, though, or you'll get people interviewing you who want to call you Mo.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 08:49 pm (UTC)did I miss the entry where you explained the origins of the title "ocky milk", or is it spookily ambiguous?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-22 09:15 pm (UTC)baby teeth
Date: 2006-03-23 01:40 am (UTC)Re: baby teeth
Date: 2006-03-23 01:45 am (UTC)worsebetter produced that could almost be Ariel Pink.(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:26 am (UTC)http://www.nme.com/news/prince/22422
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 06:38 am (UTC)was this yellow disc trend just a coincidence so soon after working together?
top: anne laplatine "dicipline"
bottom: momus "otto spooky"
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 09:19 am (UTC)Thought for next time.
Date: 2006-03-23 11:02 am (UTC)?
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 11:26 am (UTC)Re: Thought for next time.
Date: 2006-03-23 11:28 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 12:25 pm (UTC)Because they're not square.
And they're not oblong.
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 01:59 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-23 07:01 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 03:53 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 07:47 am (UTC)annes' album came out first didn't it?
Lyrics?
Date: 2006-03-24 08:51 am (UTC)Dominik
(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-24 06:27 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2006-03-25 07:26 pm (UTC)http://www.fonts.com/FindFonts/detail.htm?pid=400560
-ndkent
Dada in Kansas
Date: 2006-03-29 01:06 pm (UTC)I am very proud of the Mayor of our city, Boog Highberger, who recently announced a string of random days to annually celebrate as DADA day. April 1st will be our cities first Dada day parade downtown. I think I'll wear a mask. (a physical mask, not the one I wear around everyday)
(no subject)
Date: 2006-11-22 12:37 am (UTC)you're genius
GE-NI-US
i've just only had some similar thoughts formed and done in some sort of some demos, but once again, you did it first :)
maybe it's like same mind-frequency, i just don't know, but it's so fucking familiar - like i saw last night in my dreams
have you been there?
thank you for your great music :)
really.
btw, do you plan any concerts in russia, please?
really wanna see you live:)