brief / approach

The 'Be Stiff Tour goes to New York' poster was one of the first design jobs I did using professional photo typesetting instead of DIY hand lettering - and, even better,  it was with the 'Stiff' font/typeface I had designed & then made the artwork up for it so the typesetters could photographically  input it into their system - and then send it back to me as text ready for the poster artwork in the various sizes required - proper posh at the time..!

...although the Stiff 'big apple' Records logo was hand-drawn along with the flying train illustration I had learnt enough artwork technique by then not to do it all life-sized - like the first logo, label, single bag, LP cover & poster - phew..?!

backstory

...Wonderfully, Stiff's boss Dave Robinson took most of  the Stiff staff along with the bands & roadies to New York for a week for the Be Stiff Tour's run of dates at the Bottom Line club - leaving behind a bare minimum 'skeleton staff' and the unfortunate Mickey Jupp who couldn't/wouldn't fly...

...also, some of us  were generously given a box of Stiff singles to trade - I headed straight for the legendary Bleaker Bob's record store and had one of the luckiest, most magical coincidences of my record collecting life - in my traded selection box of recent 7" releases that Bob gave me was the Cramps first two singles on their own Vengeance label - a luminous logo copy of Human Fly and a signed copy of Surfin' Bird - I say magical as The Cramps soon became & are are my all time favourite band and Human Fly is my all time favourite song intro - although I had to wait a frustrating week until I got home to play the records..!

...I got to work with them after that back in London and tried to get them signed to Stiff - check out the backstory for the 'Fuck Art, Let's Dance...' T-shirt on this site's carousel...