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.
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“Home and dry” was released on March 2002 as the first single of “Release”, the eight studio album of PSB. For the first time in their career, the band decided to use a different designer to work on the new album cover and its singles commissioning the artwork to Scott King by recommendation of different artist friends. The big change on the design was the use of the words “Pet Shop Boys” in a large scale, filling the whole sleeve with the words and using bold colours instead of small type or stickers that they used to have. The press release was written as a mock art-gallery release with the “Home and dry” video attached, in the style of releases issued by the influential White Cube gallery in east London.
The commercial release included two CD Singles and one DVD Single; the artwork for all three releases was the same just changing colours. The first CD with yellow background and black type included “Home and dry (Radio Edit)” and two B Sides: “Sexy Northerner” and “Always”; the second CD with orange background and black type included “Home and dry (Ambient Mix)”, a new song in collaboration with Peter Rauhofer called “Break 4 love” in 2 versions, ‘UK Radio Edit’ and ‘Friburn & Urik Hi Pass Mix’; the DVD Single with dark orange background and white type included “Home and dry (Video)”, “Nightlife” and “Break 4 love (USA Club Mix)”. A Limited Edition cardboard slipcase with the same artwork in pink background with white type was available only through PSB mailing list subscribers.
“Home and dry” artwork almost never changed across releases and countries, since the first promotional CD with the same cover in white background and black type. The 12” promotional single used the same colours on the cover and included four versions: the Blank & Jones’ ‘Radio Edit’ and ‘Dub’ Mixes, the ‘Ambient Mix’ and the ‘Acapella’; a second 2x12” promotional single was released in a green background with black type to promote “Break 4 love”and included 5 mixes of the song plus “Home and dry (Acapella)”. For the international releases a 2-Track cardboard sleeve in yellow background with black type was released in Netherlands including “Home and dry” and “Sexy Northerner” with three small images the back cover, taken from the promotional video, same layout was included in all three UK releases in the inside of the cases. In the US there were just promotional releases including one CD Single and two 12” Singles. In Canada there was a promotional CD titled “Home and dry Remixes”, featuring a slightly different cover with a reduced text and bigger title, issued in a regular plastic case with the same tracks as the UK 12” Promo. A rare Greek promotional CDr was issued in a cardboard sleeve including “Home and dry (Dusan Go To Hell Mix)”, not available anywhere else.