Flying Solo
My first real proper freelance job was to design a flyer for a club night called ‘Jazz90’ commissioned by a (then) little known DJ called Gilles Peterson. Now he’s an internationally known DJ of the highest regard, and for me it led to a career in the music industry which flyer design played a very important part.
So here in the second series of the Addict ‘Diggin In The Crates’ range we present my remixed versions of my vintage club flyers dating back to the early 90’s and beyond. It’s great that I can now officially call my own work ‘vintage’ as thats what I’m all about - along with dirty Brazilian funk, heavy dub and yes you guessed it Jazz baby…!
Get on the good foot and strut your funky stuff! – Swifty
Diggin ' In The Crates Part 2
For nearly 20 years Swifty’s prolific output of record sleeves, magazines, logos, title sequences, fonts and more has gained him an international reputation for well crafted graphic design work. At Addict® we love all things Swifty, past and present so here’s another chance to collect some of Swifty’s gems from the depths of the Typografix archives!
As one of the innovators of the “sampling” generation Swifty’s work fuses found objects, paint and sculpture in a pop art sensibility that brings the art form blasting into the 21st century! Indeed in a similar fashion to Andy Warhol - Swifty is set to transend from the world of commercial graphics to the world of fine art. Drawing on his childhood experiences playing with Action Man and building Airfix models - Swifty explores why he likes camo so much and what makes these patterns and colours so appealing. Swifty has developed a style that is hooked into style and culture from the last 30 years combining his love of art with camouflage in an intriguing and original way.
As Swifty calls them, his “Non Original - Originals” are direct and witty and epitomise the new aesthetic among Britain’s new up and coming street and urban artists. These paintings are the first in a range of work planned for 2007. By the late 90’s Swifty had started designing title sequences for British TV producing eye catching logos and identities for such programmes as ‘Smack the pony’, ‘Derren Brown’s trick of the mind’ & ‘Peep Show’ for Channel 4. For the BBC he’s done ‘Jazz Britannia’ as well as ‘Soul Britannia’ for BBC 4 and also worked on a handful of short films and low budget features.
More recently Swifty’s been turning his hand to designing graphics and camo patterns for us which has led to him rediscovering some of his pre-Mac skills and techniques and so, after nearly 20 years in the industry Swifty is twisting his creativity to new levels by persuing a more artist like stance producing one off originals as well as silk screen prints, dry point and photo etchings.
A new dawn is arising! Watch out Swifty is about!
Swifty
One of the true British graphic originators of our time, his work has been hugely influential in music and youth culture since he started out in the late 1980’s. Fresh from art school he landed a job at The Facemagazine under the watchful eye of Neville Brody, and later art directed its sister publication Arena for nearly a year.
Since 1989 he has been art director of the highly acclaimed ‘Straight No Chaser’ magazine which has proved to be a brilliant vehicle for his unique fonts and graphic sensibility. In 1990 he set up ‘Swifty Typografix’ and for the next 5 years designed hundreds of club flyers for London clubs dj’s and promoters like Gilles Peterson, Somethin’ Else and the Fridge in Brixton.
Heavily tapped into the music scene at this time, Swifty designed the logos and identity for the influential label ‘Talkin Loud’ (A&R’d by Gilles Peterson) and was designing landmark record sleeves for bands such as the ‘Young Disciples’, ‘Incognito’ and Galliano. He designed the famous ‘Mo Wax’ logo and set up the labels aesthetic in the early days before migrating into TV and moving image design. Other labels to receive the Swifty touch have been ‘Source360’, B&W Music, Quango, Clear, Rice, Right Tempo, Clean up and ‘Island Records’.
For nearly ten years he has designed the sleeves for Brazilian label ‘Far Out’ producing iconic sleeves for class acts such as ‘Azymuth’, ‘Joyce’ and ‘Marcos Valle’. More recently he’s been working with Japanese label ‘Especial’ and London based label “Freestyle’.
