Style combination · Contrasts

Afrobeat Sleeve Art × Post-Punk Record Sleeve

Lemi Ghariokwu's sleeves fill every inch to state the record's argument, while post-punk sleeves leave the name off and say nothing; use the pair to decide how much a cover should explain.

From the research on Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD)

Mix them and make something Afrobeat Sleeve Art Post-Punk Record Sleeve

A sample layout drawn from the recipe: shapes from Afrobeat Sleeve Art, their arrangement from Post-Punk Record Sleeve, the finish from Post-Punk Record Sleeve. Not a real work, and not an image of either style.

What each style brings

Each part of the design comes from the style with the stronger say in it, and each style gives at least two.

Afrobeat Sleeve Art Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD)

Type from Afrobeat Sleeve Art: Hand-lettering
Ornamented display

Post-Punk Record Sleeve avoids ornamented display: this is where the two pull against each other, which is the point of the contrast.
Colour from Afrobeat Sleeve Art: Full polychrome
Complementary clash
Form from Afrobeat Sleeve Art: Distortion & exaggeration
Stylised figuration
Composition from Post-Punk Record Sleeve: Single focal point
Isolated object
Surface from Post-Punk Record Sleeve: Grain & noise
Flat

The type

Open fonts standing in for each style’s own type, which is often hand-drawn or commercial.

Display · Afrobeat Sleeve Art

No!

Bangers, standing in for Comic-strip hand lettering in speech balloons

Text · Post-Punk Record Sleeve

The record sleeves that British art-school designers made after punk, for independent labels and some majors: Barney Bubbles at Stiff, Malcolm Garrett for Buzzcocks, Peter Saville at Factory and 23 Envelope at 4AD. Instead of xerox collage, a sleeve became an art-directed object: one quoted or treated image (a pulsar plot, a Fantin-Latour still life, a Futurist poster, a misty photograph) on a quiet field or edge to edge, the band's name shrunk, coded or left off, riddles and catalogue numbers in its place, printed offset on textured, silver, gold or die-cut stock.

Space Mono; Post-Punk Record Sleeve used Peter Saville's colour-coded alphabet, one coloured block per letter, decoded by a wheel on the back of Power, Corruption & Lies (1983) and used for the title of Blue Monday and Small, ordered sans-serif capitals in the manner of Jan Tschichold's New Typography, which Saville took as his model from the 1978 Factory poster onwards

The colours

The ground and leading colours come from Afrobeat Sleeve Art, with a counter-accent from Post-Punk Record Sleeve. The ink reads on the ground at 4.5:1 or more.

Afrobeat Sleeve Art Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD)

#f4c20d ground · 36%
#141414 ink · 14%
#e8401c accent · 18%
#b8963e accent · 14%
#2a5caa accent · 10%
#b23a48 accent · 8%

As CSS

:root {
  --ground: #f4c20d;
  --ink: #141414;
  --accent-1: #e8401c;
  --accent-2: #b8963e;
  --accent-3: #2a5caa;
  --accent-4: #b23a48;
  --font-display: "Bangers", sans-serif;
  --font-text: "Space Mono", monospace;
}

Use it with care

Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD): The sleeves are in copyright, and several of their quoted images have their own authors, such as Harold Craft's pulsar plot and Bernard Pierre Wolff's photograph of the Appiani tomb: make a new quotation from a public-domain or licensed source rather than copying a Factory, Stiff or 4AD cover or its colour code.

The two styles

A distressed, brightly coloured two-panel collage titled “PEOPLE RiSiNG” features a large saxophonist surrounded by drummers, dancers, crowds, soldiers and yellow buses. The right panel contrasts industrial smokestacks, a laughing suited man holding money, and skeletons in flames with a child crouching in polluted water and people celebrating below.

1974–present · Sub-Saharan Africa Afrobeat Sleeve Art The painted and collaged record covers of Nigerian Afrobeat, defined by Lemi Ghariokwu's sleeves for Fela Kuti from Alagbon Close (1974) onward. Each cover is a political cartoon that illustrates the album's lyrics, packing oil paint, cut-out photographs, speech balloons and caricatured soldiers and world leaders into a crowded, saturated 12-inch frame under a newly drawn title. 1977–1990 · Western Europe Post-Punk Record Sleeve (Stiff, Factory, 4AD) The record sleeves that British art-school designers made after punk, for independent labels and some majors: Barney Bubbles at Stiff, Malcolm Garrett for Buzzcocks, Peter Saville at Factory and 23 Envelope at 4AD. Instead of xerox collage, a sleeve became an art-directed object: one quoted or treated image (a pulsar plot, a Fantin-Latour still life, a Futurist poster, a misty photograph) on a quiet field or edge to edge, the band's name shrunk, coded or left off, riddles and catalogue numbers in its place, printed offset on textured, silver, gold or die-cut stock.