Devotees of design and popular culture packed the stylish studio of SEA Design in Old Street, London, last night for a one-night-only celebration of Malcolm Garrett’s record sleeve designs for Duran Duran between 1981 and 1986.
With Ryan Jones’ complete collection of 7” and 12” record sleeves as the centrepiece exhibit, SEA Design’s CEO Bryan Edmondson had worked with the support of TEAM printers and GF Smith to produce a range of collateral including a limited edition poster, a catalogue and a bright yellow tote bag to create a compelling display.
With Malcolm Garrett unable to attend due to illness, his creative and business partner Kasper de Graaf spoke to place the creation of the work in the context of the time, including the different approach taken by a new generation of music industry designers ushered in by Malcolm and his boyhood schoolfriend Peter Saville, who was present at the event, and the development of Assorted images as an all-star studio of designers and creatives. As to the designs, Kasper highlighted their influence on the more dynamic approach to corporate identity and branding we see today, aided by the band’s global success, the wide range of products produced and designed which extended beyond record sleeves to books, magazine, apparel, watches, bedspreads and even a board game, and Malcolm Garrett’s central approach which was not to develop a personal style but a visual language that represented the band.
Duran Duran founder members Nick Rhodes and John Taylor both spoke to outline the band’s perspective. The beauty of being a band in the 1980s, Nick pointed out, was that they could do everything: music, design, video, fashion, art – all of which were very important to the band. “We wanted to do it our own way and Malcolm was a gift, because he was the best,” he said.
“Malcolm projected something onto us from our very first record that elevated our sense of who we were,” added John Taylor.
Malcolm, from his hospital bed, chatting to Nick during the event.
The event brought together prominent figures from the world of design, pop culture and media, from Jane Pluer, Angus Hyland and Marion Deuchars to Eye Magazine’s Alan J. Walters and Design Week’s Clare Dowdy, Alasdair Scott and Chris Bigg to Deborah Dawton, Lynda Relph-Knight, Bury Art Museum curator Kat Au and many others, alongside Assorted images stalwarts Nigel Proktor and Steven Appleby, the creator of Captain Star and Dragman whose own retrospective is still running at Space Station 65 in Kennington.
Kasper with Assorted images colleagues Nigel Proktor and Steven Appleby
The event was filmed and photographed by Carsten Windhorst and Gerard Hynes who are currently making a documentary about Duran Duran, which will feature an interview with Kasper filmed at the event earlier in the day.
Kasper flanked by SEA's Founder and Creative Director Bryan Edmondson and the owner of the collection of Duran Duran sleeves by Malcolm Garrett, Ryan Jones
Produced between 40 and 45 years ago, the work with Duran Duran is one of the anchor points of the Assorted images Collection covering work from 1977 to 1993 and beyond. Garrett and de Graaf have recently begun moving the Assorted images archives from storage in London and Bury to a new dedicated space in a former cotton mill in Rochdale as part of a project to preserve them as material for telling the wider story of the packaging of pop culture over that seminal period.
Photos: Carsten Windhorst