Janoschka magazine Linked_V4_2019

26 i n s i g h t s
An event was also what the British electro-pop band Ultravox had in mind when
they designed the graphic concept for their LP U-Vox, released in 1986. Instead
of a photo, the cover was to have just "U-Vox" written in big silver letters on a
red background and composed of horizontal silver lines rather like a barcode.
The clever touch here was to be an additional plastic sleeve, likewise showing
horizontal lines, which would enclose the cover and conceal the lettering.
The idea was that the viewer would initially see just a uniformly red surface;
only when the LP's cardboard cover was pulled out of the plastic sleeve would
the album's title emerge.
But the plan went wrong. Midge Ure, the singer and the musical ideas man in
Ultravox, describes in his autobiography If I Was how an ambitious design was
thwarted by a simple miscommunication: "It was a great idea, except that all the
lines had to be horizontal and somebody forgot to tell that to the ladies who packaged
the album. They put them all in wrong so it ended up with red-and-silver
tartan squares all over the sleeve." Tartan instead of camouflage – in the music
business like anywhere else, the devil is in the details.
Record cover 2.0
The great fascination still exerted both on music fans and
on musicians and designers by record covers even in the
era of the digital revolution and music streaming is illustrated
by the debut album of a young German band called
Yagow. Their first release in 2017 was issued not only as
a CD but also as a black 12-inch vinyl record whose twocolour
cover was enclosed by a protective screen-printed
PVC sleeve. Each time the viewer removed it from its
cover or pushed it back in, an impressive animation effect
of a twisting spiral was triggered, drawing the viewer
into a hypnotic vortex. An old-fashioned and entirely "nondigital"
feast for the eyes. A pity that Andy Warhol did not
live to see it.
“An exploration of vibe and mood,
space-gazing...” This describes the sound
of the rock trio Yagow as well as the
psychedelic features of the cover design.
vimeo.com/178003506