PSB DESIGNING par Alex Camarillo
Alex Camarillo explore en détail la créativité faite autour des albums et singles des Pet Shop Boys au cours de leur longue carrière ,la personnalisation des différents formats et la participation d'artistes très talentueux , photographes, créateurs de costumes et graphistes tels que Mark Farrow ,Eric Watson ,David Fielding et Jeffrey Bryant parmi ceux qui ont contribué au design des Pet Shop Boys comme une icône visuelle de la culture pop.
PSB DESIGNING par Alex Camarillo est sur facebook et instagram
At the beginning, the cover for “It’s alright” was meant to be part of Cindy Palmano’s photo session (who also shoot the photo for the album “Actually”) made for “The Face” magazine inspired by Tim Burton’s Batman movie… According to Chris, the pose was to ‘suggest Batman and Robin without being too literal’. The photo session was not well received and the black & white version was used for the Japanese EP “In Depth”, where the typographic usage on the cover matched all the “it’s alright” releases. Instead, Mark Farrow now working for the design studio “Three Associates” (3a) decided to use the “optometrist” shots from Eric Watson, images that became an iconic cover on the Pet Shop Boys career. Actually, they decided to use another shot from the same session for the UK release cover of their first book “Literally”
When “It’s alright” was launched as a single, Neil said “You want to make the record something special… I personally think -the sleeve- it’s an important as the music. You’re buying an object, so you want it to be a beautiful object. I also think a sleeve should give you things to wonder about.” Chris’ “optometrist” glasses cover was used in many different formats: German-only 3” CD, UK 5” CD, 7” and 12” vinyls. Limited editions for the 7” and 12” vinyls were released subsequently, including an outer black “bellyband” like the one used in the “Introspective 3x12” Limited Edition” release to place the title in front and the track list in the back, leaving the sleeve images untouched. For the 7” release, Neil’s shot was used for the front cover -as it was used on the tape cassette- and placing Chris’ to the back. The typography used on the bellybands started using fluoro-colours, inspired in the coloured bars of the “Introspective” cover and the merchandising and stage elements used on their first tour MCMLXXXIX.
The 10” limited edition used the bellyband graphic idea for the whole sleeve showing completely black-coloured font and back covers with fluorescent typography on the front calling these version as “The Alternatives” and included an inserted poster showing Neil & Chris in the same image. Finally a second limited edition 12” vinyl titled “The DJ International Mixes” was released including two “deep house” remixes by Sterling Void and Tyree Cooper pushing the fluorescent colours to the limit and using neon pink for the front cover and neon green for the back cover, -colours previously used in the typography- both with silver text. These record was released as a limited edition 12” for the UK and a limited edition 3” CD for Germany.