As part of the record sleeve creation project Daniel set for us, we were also asked to write a paragraph to do with music design, a record cover or a designer. I choose to write a paragraph on one of the articles provided for us by Rick Poyner.

Poyner’s article is titled “The Art of Punk and the Punk Aesthetic” and is found on Design Observer. The article talks about the graphic design and imagery aspect of punk with reference and quotations from two different illustrated books; “Punk: An Aesthetic” by Johan Kugelberg and John Savage which address US side of punk and “The Art Of Punk” by Ross Bestley and Alex Ogg which address the UK side of punk with both books showing awareness of other punk scenes in other countries. I found the entire article quite interesting in that I feel I learned some things in terms of the past behind the graphic design aspect of punk. I hadn’t realised how big the variety of materials that were used to create the various punk graphic designs; from cartoon drawings, rub-down lettering and stencils(which were most notably used by Crass) to things like silkscreen and offset litho which are techniques I’ve never even heard of before. In “Punk: An Aesthetic”, Kugelberg and Savage say that the “anarchic upsurge in graphic design . . . revolutionised design” which I find fascinating that a subculture like punk could have such a significant impact on something like graphic design all those years ago.

All in all, I’m glad I had the opportunity to come across this article through this class as it gave me an opportunity to learn more about the punk subculture.