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February 20th: Client approaches designer. "I'm sort of nearing completion of my 2006 album, which is to be called Ocky Milk. I would expect the release date to be August-ish. I've decided to go for continuity with the last two records, so I've enlisted John Talaga again to do sound processing, gone for a quirky title starting with an O, and envision a sleeve with a black basis but colour within it. I have a couple of ideas of how it could look. One is a black background with virtually the whole front cover taken up with the words MOMUS OCKY MILK in Milton Glaser's 1968 font Baby Teeth. The only available commercial version of this now is a copy called Bebit. The letters in Baby Teeth would "cut holes" in the black ground and drop away to either pure blocks of colour or to pictures of various things. Not sure what yet. But you get the idea: the fat blocky letters of Baby Teeth become holes in a black mask, which cut away (Bruno Munari style)..."



February 21st: Designer agrees to commission, suggests expensive diecutting technique. Client replies: "I can totally see the logic of diecutting, that's sort of inherent in the idea, but having struggled with my labels even for permission to use a digipak rather than a jewelbox, and having heard the famous story of Peter Saville's diecut "Blue Monday" sleeve costing the label (and the band) more money with every copy sold, I think the answer is "Can we do trompe l'oeuil diecut instead of the real thing?" I meant to mention a children's book by Bruno Munari (I think) which uses diecut holes beautifully. It would be great if the spirit of Munari could be there without the horrendous expense of diecutting. And also, of course, my idea is already suffused, I think, with "the spirit of Goggin"!"

March 3rd: Record sent to designer.

March 22nd: Client announces designer's involvement to world. A fee is agreed, and a deadline for finished artwork: the end of April.

April 5th: Designer suggests recreating Munari photo with Kajsa of Åbäke standing in for the little girl in the Munari photo. Thumbs up from client!

April 11th: Client sends all text and sleeve information to designer.

May 24th: Worried that sleeve photo shoot hasn't happened, client requests label to pay designer. Label asks for invoice.

June 4th: Designer trying to organize shoot with Kajsa.

June 22nd: Shoot with Kajsa finally happens, co-incidentally when client happens to be visiting London and can actually attend in person. He witnesses at first hand the constant distractions designer is suffering.

June 23rd: Client blogs about the shoot, admiringly dubbing designer's style "benign sobriety".

July 6th: Client blogs again about the shoot and the genesis of this sleeve, from February to July.

Date unknown: Designer sends completed artwork to labels.

Date unknown: Ocky Milk by Momus is released.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 07:29 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] badbridges.livejournal.com
the fourth image down on the left could be its own album cover. i'm really interested in album design but not the kind of interested where i've researched it at all, maybe i should get on that.

i like this entry.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 04:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intergalactim.livejournal.com
this is a fun book, old "library music" record covers:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0955006112/202-3715275-8535846?v=glance&n=266239

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 07:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cityramica.livejournal.com
can we get a click opera member special discount price?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 09:08 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] riotdorrrk.livejournal.com
what's the label's objection to the digipak?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 09:09 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Slightly more expensive than jewel box, apparently.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 09:15 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intergalactim.livejournal.com
where are the soundsystem speaker stack photos from??

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 09:16 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intergalactim.livejournal.com
oh, i see it's a poster rather than a book illustration, so we might never know. bloody great poster tho'...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 10:55 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hexachrome.livejournal.com
The speaker stack photos are from Jeremy Deller and Alan Kane's 'Folk Archive' project. He made this poster for a magazine a few years ago, but the amazing speaker stack photos (from the Notting Hill Carnival, sound systems that spring up all over the area during the carnival weekend) also feature in their 'Folk Archive' (http://www.bookworks.org.uk/asp/detail.asp?uid=book_E46009BD-166D-4E0C-9F38-AD0303E0474E&sub=new) book published by Book Works.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 10:57 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hexachrome.livejournal.com
Sorry, that link didn't work. Here's the Book Works website, though:

http://www.bookworks.org.uk

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 09:00 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intergalactim.livejournal.com
what magazine was it?

(nice design job on the francis upritchard catalogue too)

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 12:46 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] hexachrome.livejournal.com
Hmm, now you've called my bluff. Can't remember the magazine, or, now that I think about it, whether it really was part of a magazine (more like a one-off publication?). I'll email the artists.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 04:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] intergalactim.livejournal.com
thanks very much,
although from down in new zealand i might be hard-pressed to ever track it down.
i'll probably just setttle for ordering the book; it does look fascinating...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 10:21 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] cap-scaleman.livejournal.com
So awful lot of time making an album in the "real world"!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 10:39 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
June 6th: A fan slightly concerned with the recent over-use of "Bebit".

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 11:42 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Ha, yes, agreed! Nobody's quite using cut-out paper versions like we are, but over the past few months I've been taking photos of usages of Bebit / Baby Teeth all over the place. Perhaps I'll make a blog entry of them one day...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 12:15 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
All this information but what we really want to know is what fee was agreed? Or why didn't you just do it yourself in photoshop?

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 02:04 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Yes, I'd like to know something about the economics of it all. How many Ocky Milk CDs are going to be produced? I'm guessing only a few thousand. Which leaves margins for things like sleeve design pretty tight I'd imagine...

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 02:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
I think fees are a problematical area to divulge because the designer might be charging one client one rate and another another. Not saying this is the case with James Goggin -- in fact, as far as I know my sleeves are the only two he's done so far. Still, he might not like me to set a precedent by announcing his prices, then have other bands come to him and say "Hey, you did that Momus sleeve for £x!"

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 03:12 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
... which translates as: "Yes, I got it done on the cheap!"

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 03:56 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] rroland.livejournal.com
supermadrigal brothers are the reigning champions of american patchwork sales, and they were jewel cased, as opposed to yours truly of digipack. it's all about accessibility and production values, man.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 04:41 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] silenceinspades.livejournal.com
july 6th: designer reads client's blog entry which passively aggressively demands the sleeve be finished.
designer cries himself to sleep.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 06:06 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Designer e mails client saying he's delighted with the blog: "it's an honest account of how design projects go". What's more, he promises finished artwork within the week. RESULT!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-06 06:08 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
(Oh, and by the way, [livejournal.com profile] hexachrome above, that's him!)

gpop

Date: 2006-07-06 08:15 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
http://www.gpop.co.uk/

p.s. i hear momus has a way to track down the location of someone based on their ip address. if so, i wonder how long it will take him to catch me!

Re: gpop

Date: 2006-07-07 10:41 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Your ISP is coming out of Reston, Virginia. But your music is from space!

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 07:48 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com
I'm really looking forward to the release of Ocky Milk...

I'm afraid this has nothing to do with the subject, but I thought you may be interested in this...I recently found a web site that showed scanned images of a guide to China given to American soilders in 1942 during their stay there. Within the pages of this book (and in it's entirity on the web site) is a comic titled "How To Spot A Jap". I'm just curious to know what you think of it.

here is the link:
http://www.ep.tc/howtospotajap/howto01.html (http://www.ep.tc/howtospotajap/howto01.html)

Take care.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 08:39 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] imomus.livejournal.com
Not sure that guide will help you spot any Japs, but it functions quite well as "How to spot an American".

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 08:44 am (UTC)
From: [identity profile] anti-peace-riot.livejournal.com
Right you are. Reminds me of some of the other "How to spot" films or booklets they have attempted. How to spot a drug user, homosexual, communist, terrorist... makes one wonder where they get these views of groups from.

(no subject)

Date: 2006-07-07 01:37 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Some of the points are quite valid, e.g., pronunciation.

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