The Breeders’ song “Cannonball,” the lead single from the band’s 1993 album Last Splash, starts off with screeching guitar that sounds like ear-busting audio feedback. A rolling bass line and beating drum enter a few seconds in. The album’s cover–a shiny plastic heart splashed with dark brown liquid and set against a swirling acid-green and neon-red background, is almost like a visual analogue for the track’s rhythmic abrasiveness.
It’s the work of Vaughan Oliver, a British graphic designer responsible for the surreal look of 4AD, the indie rock label of the Pixies, Cocteau Twins, Dead Can Dance, This Mortal Coil, and, of course, the Breeders. Oliver’s work is the subject of a new book, just launched on Kickstarter, from the independent publisher Unit Editions.
“He doesn’t obey the rules of typography, and often his work is about mystery and weirdness–the opposite of most graphic communication, which is mostly about clarity and unambiguous messages,” Adrian Shaughnessy, cofounder of Unit Editions, tells Co.Design in an email. “He is a true graphic auteur. The David Lynch of graphic design!”
“There’s no one in graphic design–then or now–quite like him,” Shaughnessy says. “His work has a poetic and lyrical quality that is closer to art than graphic design. There’s also a cinematic quality to his work that makes him a unique voice in the visual world. . .I hope that people will come to see that he is an extraordinary talent. Original, and a one-off.”
Visit Kickstarter to back Unit Edition’s campaign for the Vaughan Oliver book, which concludes on December 8. Shipping for the monograph (about $100) is expected in May 2018.