#record frames

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: Beggars Arkive - BBC Radio Sessions, Vol. 1 Various Artists

The highly anticipated 2024 BBC Radio Sessions vinyl series from the Beggars Group is released with a brand new cohesive box set re-design consisting of ten separate 12” vinyl records featuring ten performances recorded for John Peel.

All incorporated into a bespoke foil-numbered record box, this super collectable limited edition box set from the Beggars archives, is available exclusively for subscribers and we were lucky enough to speak to Designer, Carter O'Sullivan and Archives Manager, Florence Pick from the Beggars Group, to find out more about the project.

The sessions on each of the records span 30 years, from the 1970s to the 2000s and capture the raw, unfiltered essence of BBC radio performances recorded for John Peel. The famous Peel Sessions were always renowned for featuring both emerging and established artists, providing a platform for exclusive and ground-breaking recordings. And this unique limited-edition boxset brings these rare recordings, from some of the most influential artists in Beggars’ extensive archive, together with a design sense of uniformity and simplicity, whilst ensuring each record had its own unique character.

Florence explained that the inspiration for the design was inspired by BBC branding and artwork from the 70s and 80s, “A lot of early BBC artwork inspired us, very boxy plain artwork and simple bold colours.”

Carter elaborates, “We were under some strict design constraints, as we couldn’t use original artwork as there was none for these specific radio sessions. We also didn’t want to use photographs of the different bands as it could start to look very mismatched with the different visual aesthetics of photography. So we had to start from scratch and find a way to represent all of the radio sessions in a cohesive box set. I started to look at BBC branding and infographics from the 70s and 80s, as a lot of the recordings were made around that time.”

Carter continues, “We then spoke as a team about refining the design down to 3 simple things, block shapes, colour and texture. Each of these visual characteristics create a visual language that can be played with, chopped and changed to represent the music inside. Once we had settled on the shapes and layout of the text for each record, we then had the fun task of selecting a range of 10 pairs of colours that flow cohesively, so when you collect all 10 records they fit together on your shelf.”

The creative was taken back to basics as Carter told us, “With the artwork being very stripped back focusing on three simple principles of colour, shape and texture. The technique of creating a tight grid system was used for each of the blocks on the front and back cover. Along with using the beautiful range of colours Pantone has to offer so when printing the colours were as close to what we had envisioned as possible.” 

Tubeway Army

Bauhaus

Electrelane

The Beggars group has an impressive heritage with origins stemming from the Beggars Banquet record shops in London, whose first branch opened in 1973 in Earls Court. The label was born in 1977 with the 7” release of the ‘Free Admission Single’ by The Lurkers. Success was quick to follow via one of the first signings, Gary Numan. Chaired by founder Martin Mills, Beggars Group now comprises many of the world’s most respected independent labels and is home to 4AD, Matador Records, Rough Trade, XL Recordings and Young, in addition to a growing publishing wing ‘Beggars Music’ and the successful catalogue imprint ‘Beggars Arkive’ from which this release hails.

Florence Pick works in the archive department at Beggars and helps to release their back catalogue in new and interesting ways, working closely with the art department and music artists. She comes from a record shop background and says “vintage vinyl & sleeve art is something I have always cared about and understand the importance of preserving and crafting exclusive products for music fans.”

Carter O'Sullivan joined the art department at Beggars during the midst of 2020 covid and has have worked across projects from new releases such as Queens of the Stone Age’s ‘In Times New Roman…’ to reissues like Death Cult’s ‘Paradise Now’. He says, “Getting to be a part of the creative process for such artists and bands I grew up on has been a life achievement and continuing to push what’s possible where art and music meet will be forever interesting to me.” 

We couldn't put it better ourselves...exploring what's possible where art and music meet is our passion and we can't wait to get all 10 of these beautifully packaged records framed and displayed on the office walls!

BBC Radio Sessions, Vol. 1 Various Artists is released on Beggars Arkive as a subscription service that started in January 2024 with the final record of the series, 'Electrelane' released at the end of October. An Annual Vinyl Subscription for the Collector's Box Set Promo includes:

 The Fall BBC Radio Sessions 1 Vinyl, 12”

 Folk Devils BBC Radio Sessions 2 Vinyl, 12”

 Stereolab BBC Radio Sessions 3 Vinyl, 12”

 Moonshake BBC Radio Sessions 4 Vinyl, 12”

 Bauhaus BBC Radio Sessions 5 Vinyl, 12”

 China Drum BBC Radio Sessions 6 Vinyl, 12”

 Tubeway Army BBC Radio Sessions 7 Vinyl, 12”

 Mouse on Mars BBC Radio Sessions 8 Vinyl, 12”

 BBC Radio Sessions 9 Vinyl, 12”

 BBC Radio Sessions 10 Vinyl, 12”

[satoblue]

baseball dad satoru

[impossiblefeat]

Has anyone ever wanted to have a transparent gif of Espio spinning forever? Now you do.

[bumfuzzled-bee]

!! Lil guys !!

[wrongspacetime]

LOST RECORDS : BLOOM & RAGE (2025) dev. Don't Nod

[vcidheart]

Wallace & Gromit : Vengeance Most Fowl

[crowlixcx]

[purpurussy]

tommyinnit they could never make me hate you (source)

[deliriousblue]

THE HEART KILLERS (2024) + tropes prior art by @hurlumerlu

+ bonus:

[kth1]

⁂ 42/100 days of park jimin | blue hair jimin

[artvinyl]

Uncovered: PJ Harvey - I Inside the Old Year Dying

We continue to delve into the detail of the creative process for some of The Best Art Vinyl 2023 shortlisted album artworks and today we take a look at this seemingly simple cover design for PJ Harvey’s tenth studio album that, in fact, couldn’t be less so. The final image is actually a result of months of preparation, awaiting perfect weather conditions and a combination of multiple photographs and techniques. We were lucky enough to get the whole story from artist Michelle Henning.

Henning’s background is in fine art, she started as a painter and installation artist. As well as being a Professor in Photography and Media in the School of the Arts at the University of Liverpool, Michelle works for PJ Harvey as art director/creative director, and as such is very much involved in decisions relating to many of the visual assets.

Michelle explained to us how the creative process starts and about her collaboration with PJ Harvey; “The way I approach the work is to listen to the music. Polly and I don’t discuss visual ideas at first, instead, she gives me everything to do with the album: recordings or demos, poems and lyrics, drawings and notes. I then immerse myself in it and try to get a feel for it and start working. I already had a way into it because I was familiar with her poetry book 'Orlam', which is connected to the album, and I had a strong sense of the world of the album. What matters most to me is trying to find a visual equivalent for the music, not to illustrate it or directly reference lyrics, but sense the atmosphere and convey that.”

Michelle elaborates, “In the case of ‘I Inside the Old Year Dying’, this album has a strange and interesting feel, on the one hand it’s about a twentieth century rural childhood, with references to Curly-Wurlys and Coca cola but also there are soldiers who appear from a much more ancient past, and there’s a strong presence of nature."

PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying concept gatefold (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023) with photographs by Steve Gullick and drawings by Polly Harvey

"I started by thinking I would try to put wildlife cameras in a forest, not to capture animals but to get infra-red photos of trees. So I did that for a while but I wasn’t satisfied with the results. Then I started to paint forests, but that didn’t feel right either."

Early Forest concept ideas for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

"I had a sudden realisation that I didn’t need a whole forest, I just needed one stick and such a simple single object would give it the feel of the classic album covers I admire. Now I realise an unconscious influence was Polly herself, because she had chosen to use drawings she had made of single twigs (“twiddicks”), to break up the sections in 'Orlam'."

Orlam by PJ Harvey

"I think the idea of giving the stick a shadow emerged from the process of finding twigs on the ground and photographing them — the shadows seemed to bring them to life and make something very ordinary suddenly seem almost animate."

Concept ideas for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

"The back cover is a photograph of Polly by Steve Gullick, onto which I superimposed a scan of a tissue and plastic envelope, so it has a slightly battered, used look. I chose this photo because I loved the way her legs echoed the shape of the twig, and also how it could be cropped so that it seemed as if she was almost kicking the edge of the album away."

Front and back cover artwork for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

Michelle has produced three album covers and a number of singles for PJ Harvey as well as several for other artists, including for John Parish, Mazgani and Dot Allison. She works with a wide variety of techniques; photography, clay models, printmaking, drawing in ink and watercolour and moves between analogue and digital, with a lot of work in Adobe Photoshop, creating very complex layered files.

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, Let England Shake (Island Records, 2011)

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, A Dog Called Money 7" Single

Centre label of Hope Six vinyl | PJ Harvey (Island Records 2016)

Expanding on her techniques for this current album cover artwork, Michelle tells us, “I photographed a lot of sticks in bright sunlight on different coloured and textured backgrounds. At a certain time in the afternoon the sun started to cast really interesting shadows. I remember Polly’s manager Sumit calling me and asking me when I would have something ready to show them, and I said I wouldn’t be ready until we had had more sunny weather. He was very patient with me but he must have wondered what on earth I was doing.”

She continues, “The stick that worked best, that I felt had the most mysterious shadow, I then rephotographed under plastic. The final image is a composite of about three or maybe more photographs of this twig, both under the plastic and not. The orange sticker is based on the sticker stuck on this piece of plastic ��� which was a large transparent folder in which my film photographs were returned to me. I liked the way it brought a pop of colour to the cover.”  

"In Photoshop, I changed the lighting on the plastic, added more layers of plastic lighting, superimposed Polly’s handwriting onto the sticker, and created the fake embossed text in the centre (which is a mixture of hand-painted ink drawing and a lot of digital editing)."

"The gatefold is a scan of a 1980s sticky photograph album complete with the blue lines of glue and the plastic layer, and the inner sleeve is based on photographs of red kitchen linoleum superimposed over photographs by Polly of a lamb and a forest. I did a rough layout for the body text and type, and then handed that over to Rob Crane of Rob Crane Design, who did a brilliant job of making the typography on the inside and back covers look elegant and balanced, and made all the files print-ready."

Inner gatefold for PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023) with typesetting by Rob Crane, and photographs by Steve Gullick gatefold pic

Michelle told us she looked at a lot of great album covers when creating this artwork and there are subtle references to some of them, both in the inner gatefold and the front cover. She says, "I love the idea that there are record cover geeks like myself who like to figure out the echoes of other designs, so I won’t say what they are!" (two iconic late 60s LP covers spring to our record cover geeky minds!)

Michelle Henning: PJ Harvey, I Inside the Old Year Dying concept (Copyright © Michelle Henning, 2023)

I Inside the Old Year Dying by PJ Harvey on Partisan Records is shortlisted for the Best Art Vinyl 2023 Award. Art Director, Design and front cover photography by Michelle Henning. Additional design and typesetting by Rob Crane.

[richardgrimes]

[outtamynoggin]

Love your dick incorrect quotes 😭💞💞I feel so happy reading them btw how doo u think the batfam would react to seeing alot of pictures of dick in the Wayne mannor (b had this big ass painting of dick in the middle in the hq show and in an old comic there was a wall sized portrait of those two XD

Thank you so much!!

Batman #13

This one right? There's a few others too!

Is this the one about the HQ? From the Harley Quinn show. oh wait hq stands for Harley Quinn 🤣🤣🔫

Either way, I love how Bruce's obsession with Dick is just so constant across media and across decades. DC is literally honing in on him being favorite.

The show is literally unhinged:

Bruce, what? Can you say it in any other words???

Actually in the show, Damian sees the one when they're all dining because he's gaming on the couch and he's so chill about it. Like he just expects it.

Damian: Of course, there's a photo of Richard on the wall. He is the favorite. It is only right that father commissioned a Renaissance-scale shrine for him.

Meanwhile Jason is like: What am I, chopped liver?

While Tim's like: You're actually more like burnt liver.

Tim: *ducks as a whole friggin couch goes sailing over his head. Stands up smirking only to get tackled by a hulking mass of undead muscle*

Damian: At least Todd has a picture on the wall.

Tim: *Pool noodling his way out of Jason's grasp* That's cause he thought both of them were dead which is why he has the pictures up. Only Dick's is the size of a cathedral alter like Bruce commissioned it from the Vatican which he then framed in solid gold. You don’t hang something like that unless you expect people to pray to it. Jason's got shoved into a tiny corner at the bottom.

Jason: *throwing his hands up* CAN I WIN JUST ONCE IN THIS HOUSE?!

Tim: Are you Dick?

Damian: *smirking* No.

Tim: Then no.

Jason: You little twerps. I'm gonna string you two up and throw you out the batplane.

Stephanie: *walking in* Who's throwing who out of a batplane?

Tim: *scoffing* Jason's throwing me and batbrat out of the batplane.

Stephanie: Oooh! Sounds fun, can I join?! I'll bring the ropes!

Tim: You're not even going to ask why???!

Stephanie: *deadpan* Tim. I don't need a reason to throw you out of the batplane.

Tim: *Offended*

Jason: *Laughing and high-fiving her* God you get me.

Stephanie: But for curiosity's sake-

Damian: For the sake of curiosity-

Stephanie: -Why?

Damian: Todd is emotionally compromised over Father's unrelenting favoritism toward Richard.

Stephanie: Oh. Well, duh. Everyone likes Dick more.

Tim: Facts.

Stephanie: That's Batfam Lore™. What brought it on this time though?

Tim: We were talking about the massive picture Bruce has in the dining room. 

Stephanie: Oh my fudge cake gods. That Picture! Do you know how hard it is to eat even a cheese stick while being stared down by a thirty-foot tall Dick Grayson?! Like, what is wrong with Bruce! I’m pretty sure the reason Dick doesn’t visit the manor anymore is because he’s too weirded out by a bigger version own self staring at him. 

Jason: THANK YOU. Someone with a decent sense of propriety. And why the hell is it life-sized?

Stephanie: Barbara loves it, though. She thinks it's hot. Calls it "Big Dick Energy: Collector’s Edition." But she and Bruce are weird about him.

Tim: *muttering* I think it’s nice.

*Silence.*

Stephanie, Jason, and Damian: *Collectively side-eyeing him*

Stephanie: Right.... You were always weird about him too.

Tim: Wha- I was perfectly normal!

Damian: Drake. You once stood in front of the living room one for six hours straight.

Jason: Ye- six hours? Really?

Damian: He did not eat. He did not move. Father thought he was stuck in a time loop.

Jason: *Turning a disbelieving gaze on Tim* Dude....

Tim: *Flushing* I was just… observing! Deep observation! For art appreciation!

Stephanie: It’s not the fucking Louvre, Tim. That picture has been there through 7 kids and it's going to be there for at least 7 kids. But really, does Bruce have to have so many pictures of Dick?

Jason: *Rolling his eyes* Tell me about it. Don't forget the life-sized one in the library. I went in to read and accidentally ended up having a staring contest with a 2D Dick. Lost both my dignity and the will to finish my book.

Jason: *Gesturing wildly* You can’t eat in peace, can’t read in peace—hell, I tried to take a nap on the couch once and woke up face-to-face with a mantlepiece-sized Dick smile. I thought I died and went to Grayson Heaven.

Damian: Also the framed photos of him littering Father's study so he can stare at them while he works. I'm inundated with his visage every few rooms.

Stephanie: I bet even Alfred’s like, "Sir, perhaps a fourth room of paintings is excessive."

Tim: He’d never say that. Alfred’s part of the cult.

Damian: *Nodding* Pennyworth once wiped dust off the frame and whispered, "Good as new, Master Richard."

Jason: *voice cracking* Okay, you know what? I can’t do this anymore. I’m moving to Crime Alley. At least there, there’s no Dick—

Stephanie: There’s literally a Nightwing mural spray-painted across an entire wall with the word "Hope" like Gotham’s Beyoncé.

Jason: *crying* Fuck. Exactly. EVEN THERE I CAN'T ESCAPE HIM.

Damian: *judging him* This is a personal failing.

Jason: *frothing at the mouth* No, you would think that, wouldn't you? You’re the last person who should talk! You get all misty-eyed and say "We were the best, Grayson" every time Dick breathes near you!

Damian: *smirking* That is because it’s true.

Jason: *Collapsing on the coach and trying to avoid looking at the framed picture Dick on the side table* ....I can't believe I'm saying this... but thank you for being the normal one, Steph.

Stephanie: *Laughing nervously* Uh, yeah. Sure! No problem!

Tim: *Rolling his eyes* You're thanking the wrong girl. She-

Stephanie: *Wacking him unconscious hurriedly* SO! Who wants waffles!!

[zevrans]

DRAGON AGE: THE VEILGUARD (2024, dev. by Bioware)

[celeryguy]

Small messy Sif animation I did for fun

Was originally going to be a gif but flipaclip screwed it up somehow so you get a video instead 👍👍👍

[theantarcticempire]

happy five year anniversary to the antarctic empire!