Most of the work shown here results from a designer and an artist (or writer, whatever) collaborating to producing a new piece of work, rather than merely documenting an existing one. Contrary to the general (and generally accepted) situation of a designer working at least one step removed as a detached form-giver (to borrow from the Dutch), these works push for a resolution which neither designer nor artist could have
achieved alone, something greater than the sum of their constituent parts.
Here are the cover and two spreads of what is essentially abook of lyrics by post-punk poet John Cooper Clarke. Cartoonish abstract character portraits were a recurring motif in the work of Barney Bubbles, and the one of Cooper Clarke here typically captures multiple facets of his style and character : contrary, electric, day-glo, pop and punk. Inside, Bubbles took every page of Coopers and Clarkes in the phone book, crossed them all out and used them as a background wallpaper on which to compose a series of formal collages incorporating fragments of angular poetry and judicious photography. This freeform invention ts carried over onto the phone book’s advertising pages, subverted by Bubbles into a senes of cryptic announcements.
– “ Never Mind the Bollocks (After Jamie Reid), ” Stuart Bailey, Dot Dot Dot #11, 2005
Barney Bubbles & JohnCooper Clarke, John Cooper Clarke songbook, 1979, 37.5 x 30 cm