Counterculture · 1973–1985 · Latin America & Caribbean, Western Europe

Roots Reggae Sleeve Art & Rasta Iconography

Also known as Roots reggae cover art, Rasta sleeve art, Tuff Gong sleeve design, Red, gold and green graphics

The record sleeves of roots reggae, from Catch a Fire (1973) until dancehall took over in the 1980s. They carry Rastafari faith and pan-African politics in a fixed lexicon: red, gold and green with black, the Lion of Judah, Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey, maps of Africa and African flags. Reverent painted portraits and documentary photographs of the artists sit under 1970s display lettering and tricolour bands. Neville Garrick's Tuff Gong covers set the canon, and Island's budgets made a few sleeves into objects: a printed burlap ground, an embossed gold jacket, die-cut windows, a lighter case.

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A sample layout drawn from the style’s design choices. Stylogeny doesn’t generate images of this style, out of respect for the people it belongs to.

Use it with care

Rastafari is a living faith of an estimated 700,000 to one million people: Haile Selassie I is venerated as divine, the Lion of Judah and the red, gold, green and black mark belief and let Rastas recognise one another, and many Rastas were angered when reggae's popularity commercialised their religion. Do not use these signs, dreadlocks or ganja as generic 'island' or party decor, use an African flag only for what it stands for, commission and credit Jamaican and Rastafari designers, and remember that Garrick's and other sleeves, and Marley's image, are still in copyright and licensed.

How it works

Carry the faith in a fixed set of signs, each used for what it means: red, gold and green with black, the Lion of Judah, the map of Africa and African flags.
Put the artist at the centre, as a documentary photograph or a reverent painted portrait, never as a caricature.
Settle the album's concept before the picture, so the sleeve states the record's message (repatriation, survival, the fall of Babylon) without needing the word for it.
Title it in a 1970s display face or hand lettering, often in the three colours, and frame or band the image with red, gold and green stripes.
On the bigger Island releases, make the sleeve imitate a roots material or become an object: a printed burlap ground (sackcloth, 'the roots of Rasta'), a title embossed on a metallic gold jacket, die-cut windows, a hinged lighter case.

Kingston, Jamaica, and London: Jamaican labels, Island Records' international reggae releases and, from 1978, Virgin's reggae label Front Line, with Neville Garrick as art director of Bob Marley's Tuff Gong label from 1974 (the end date is approximate: dancehall took over Jamaican sleeves during the 1980s)

Its design choices

From Stylogeny’s vocabulary of design choices: defining choices make the style, characteristic ones are usual, occasional ones turn up now and then.

Layout & composition: Central symmetry characteristic
Full bleed characteristic
Framed panels characteristic
Modular grid occasional
Space & hierarchy: Single focal point defining
Measured density characteristic
Repetition & rhythm occasional
Typography: Ornamented display defining
Hand-lettering characteristic
All caps characteristic
Eclectic mixing occasional
Slab serif occasional
Colour: Limited spot colours characteristic
Flat fields characteristic
Earth & mineral characteristic
Full polychrome occasional
Jewel & metallic occasional
Dark ground occasional
Form & shape: Naturalistic depiction characteristic
Stylised figuration characteristic
Rectilinear occasional
Surface & texture: Painterly brushwork characteristic
Skeuomorphic material occasional
Ornament: Folk & sacred symbols defining
Emblems & badges characteristic
Borders & frames characteristic
Rules & bars characteristic
Restrained accents characteristic
Imagery: Straight photography defining
Painterly illustration characteristic
Treated photography occasional
Diagram & data occasional
Medium & production: Offset printing defining
Hand-painted characteristic
Tone & intent: Spiritual & sacred defining
Utopian & idealistic characteristic
Rebellious & subversive characteristic
Agitational & persuasive characteristic
Communal & popular occasional
Avoids: Distortion & exaggeration, Ironic & self-aware, Rational & objective, Ornament-free, Pastel, Fluorescent & neon, Non-representational

Palette

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Typefaces

Banco
the Natty Dread title, 1974
Rustic No. 2
Man in the Hills, 1976
Profil and Japanesque
Africa Must Be Free by 1983, 1978
City
the Survival title, 1979
Pluto-style tube lettering
Babylon by Bus, 1978
Hand lettering pasted up with set type
Neville Garrick's pre-computer artwork
ITC Souvenir
back-cover track lists and credits

Known for

The Wailers, Catch a Fire (Island, 13 April 1973)
the first 20,000 copies in a hinged, hand-riveted Zippo-lighter sleeve by Rod Dyer and Bob Weiner; later pressings, credited to Bob Marley and the Wailers, used John Bonis's cover with Esther Anderson's portrait of Marley
Bob Marley and the Wailers, Natty Dread (Island/Tuff Gong, 25 October 1974)
cover art by Tony Wright, the title in Banco in red, gold and green
Neville Garrick (1950–2023), art director of Tuff Gong from 1974
Rastaman Vibration (Island, April 1976), a watercolour wash over a photocopied photograph of Marley cut out and mounted on burlap; the printed jacket reproduces the burlap (embossed on the US issue), which Garrick chose because it 'symbolise[s] sack cloth, the roots of Rasta'
Neville Garrick, sleeves for Bunny Wailer, Blackheart Man (Solomonic/Island, 1976) and Burning Spear, Man in the Hills
Island, 1976
Neville Garrick (art direction), Exodus (Island, 3 June 1977)
the red title embossed on a plain metallic-gold jacket, the band's name small in black, with no picture
Neville Garrick, Babylon by Bus (1978)
a bus with die-cut windows showing scenes on the inner sleeve
Neville Garrick, Survival (2 October 1979)
48 African flags and that of Papua New Guinea, made by hand from construction paper, the title in white City over a detail of the Brookes slave-ship diagram
Neville Garrick, Confrontation (23 May 1983)
his painting of Marley as St George slaying the dragon of Babylon, with the 1896 Battle of Adwa in the gatefold; Garrick painted the Italians at Adwa in profile, as Ethiopian painters show the enemy