December 18, 2008
Barney Bubbles: Optics and Semantics
“Get Happy!!” poster for Elvis Costello and the Attractions, 1980
Barney Bubbles has a unique place in British graphic design. Even more than Robert Brownjohn, who also died much too soon, Bubbles feels both known and unknown. If only we could interview him now we could finally get some answers. Why refuse to sign your designs when you knew they were so original? Why the repeated desire for anonymity when your work sometimes includes stylized self-portraits, a blatant assertion of your presence on equal terms with your clients, in a way that most of your colleagues in graphic design would never have dared at the time? Bubbles’ suicide in 1983, at the age of 41, ensured that we will probably never get to the bottom of it. Only one hesitant interview with him exists, reluctantly undertaken and published in The Face two years before his death.
Colin Fulcher (aka Barney Bubbles). Photograph by David Wills, 1966
“Existence is Unhappiness” fold-out poster from Oz no. 12, 1968
“Lives” exhibition postcard for the Arts Council, 1979
“Hit Me with Your Rhythm Stick” 7-inch single sleeve for Ian Dury and the Blockheads, 1978
Barney Bubbles by Barney Bubbles, 1981
Observed
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Observed
By Rick Poynor
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