THE COVER DESIGN for In No Sense? Nonsense! by The Art of
Noise is an odd mixture of awkwardness and elegance, humour, and style. The
girl's face is beautiful but distorted. Her expression is cool and aloof, yet
she is doing something rather silly and frivolous. The lettering for the band's
name is a strange combination of both very small and very large characters, and
is positioned perhaps too close for comfort to the girl's forehead. The end
result is charming—both fashionable and naive—and like the music, laced with
humour. All of this is epitomized by the party popper, an arty image that made
noise. The Art of Noise.
FASHION
John Pasche commissioned Alan David-Tu, who had recently
arrived in London from Holland, to do the photography. His work was then very
fashionable. John saw it as "very impressive; fresh and different, which
connected to the fashion element I wanted to bring into the cover."
STRANGE STUFF
"I was doing strange stuff; and John let me get on with
it and do my own thing. The shot was based on ideas I was already working on,
but was taken specificallyfor the cover" — Alan David-Tu.
MANNEQUIN
The cover image is a manipulated photographic montage of a
mannequin, taken with a Linhoff Supertechnica camera. David-Tu's style was to
photograph an image, distort it in the printing, then montage the hair on, at
the same time cutting it into a particular shape. No computers were used. It
was purely montage with photographic and printing techniques. Alan found a
mannequin as a subject, masked off portions of her face and hair, and
photographed her. He then cut up the shot, rearranged it, and re-photographed
it.
THE ART OF NOISE LOGO
Printed on the back cover in a clear spot varnish, the logo
was visible only when the light caught it. The logo was designed by John Pasche
when the band first signed to Chrysalis, and was used as the basis for the
sleeve of the 1986 album In Visible Silence.
JOHN PASCHE
John Pasche studied at Brighton College of Art, and then the
Royal College of Art, gaining an MA in Graphic Design in 1970. In 1971, John
designed the famous tongue logo for The Rolling Stones (see page 139). During the
70s he was an art director at Benton and Bowles advertising agency and later
for United Artists Records. In the 80s he became creative director for
Chrysalis Records and won several Music Week awards for his album cover design
work. In 1994 he became creative director at the Royal Festival Hall and the
Hayward Gallery Design Studio.
QUIRKY
Art director John Pasche wanted something quirky,
something sophisticated that related to fashion but with a bit of a twist.
There was a lot of humour in the music. The band was much taken with odd
sounds. They experimented enthusiastically with the Fairlight sampler and
recorded the noises made by objects dropped on the floor. Any interesting
results were incorporated into the music in a wry and incongruous way.
DID YOU KNOW that The Art of Noises was the title of an
Italian Futurist manifesto, written by Luigi Russolo in 1913, advocating the
use of everyday sounds? The Futurists also pioneered "wild"
typography-long before the experiments of the Dada movement.
"THE ONLY thing coming out of her mouth was a piece of
coloured acetate and a feather made to look like one of those twirly, noisy
things you blow at parties. I also experimented with an iron cog-wheel and a
trumpet. They were supposed to represent noise - a play on the band's name-and
the party popper thing seemed the right kind of twiddly noise." - John
Pasche.
SOPHISTICATED MARKETING
Derek Green, owner of China Records: We wanted to market the
band in a very sophisticated way. They're called The Art of Noise, after all.
We were absolutely delighted with the album sleeve."
SPECIFICATION
Artiste Art of Noise
Title In No Sense? Nonsense!
Art
Direction John Pasche
Typography Roland Williams
Photography Alan David-Tu
Record Co. China/Chrysalis, 1987
