Designer Andy Vella on creating art for the goth rockers

The designer Andy Vella has been creating album covers for more than 40 years, with his work found in millions of houses worldwide.

“The strange thing I get is every time I design a new album or a new logo for the cure, some send me a tattoo that they have just done,” he explains.

“I have seen photos of Robert Smith’s silhouette of Boys Don’t Cry on people’s backs, in their rear, on their legs, in their arms.

“I with [comedian] Greg Davies and he said: “Did you kiss me, you kissed me, kiss me?” And he put on his knees and got into me. I was so embarrassed and he just said: “My God, I grew up with that on my wall.”

For its last record manga, Vella has used its very raised design skills for a project led by the beneficial organization Throwas part of their fundraising efforts to help children reach conflict areas.

Vella’s career has seen him work with several musicians and authors over the years, from Jeff Buckley to Margaret Atwood, but it is his work with the acclaimed Gothic Rockers The Cure, often in collaboration with the main singer Robert Smith, for what is better.

It is also where his career began, shortly after the band formed in Crawley in the 1970s.

While still studying in Art School, Vella was approached by on-off guitarist Cure Porl Thompson, who wanted me to photograph another group he was playing in.

“He said [for The Cure]”He says.

That album was the third Doom-Laaden album of the Faith band. Later, Vella would create the covers again for some of the most emblematic albums of the cure, including the disintegration of 1989, The Head on the By 1985 and the songs of a lost world of a world lost last year.

Every time he is working on a new design, Vella says he is looking for “something that makes you take advantage of what they do and you just realize that.”

“With Robert, his lyrics are so inspiring … All you have to do is read a line line often and balance, you have the beginning of something really great.”

It was this and the wide sound of the songs of a lost world that saw Vella and Smith hit the design for the album, which presents a stone statue head that is sideways.

“The cure sounded as bright and massive as they did in the 80s … So the album had to have something, something big, something incredible and solid to represent that,” says Vella.

Then, he admits that the final appearance of an album can come from something unexpected, as happened with the cover of Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me of 1987.

As the band was on tour in Brazil, Vella was asked to fly to the Janeiro River to obtain its design for the new approved album, although I was still working on it.

With the photo of a pair of determined heavy fish and the handwritten lyrics printed on a separate leaf of transparent plastic, I was experiencing with the design in a taxi on the way to the airport when “we get used to this sleeping police [speed bump] And the acetate jumped into the middle of the sleeve. “

“Now I would always say that you do not write in the middle of the manga, and as special in the upper part, but it only stayed in its place, so I stuck it with the thinking of Selotape,” well, it is an option, “he says.

“I showed Robert when I arrived in Rio and he said:” I love that, that’s brilliant! I love the way you have placed the guy. “

“You can be a true artistic party about things, but I think it is sometimes very pleasant for the universe to replace,” Vella adds with a smile.

For its last record manga, Vella has created a cover for the War Child’s Secret 7 “project.

Go to 700 creatives, such as the designer Sir Paul Smith, the sculptor Antony Gormley and Radiohead Stanley Donwood, all forming unique -free record sleeves for a song by one of the seven returned artists, this year, gradering, recordxbext systems.

The 700 records are exhibited in the Now London Gallery, in the Greenwich Peninsula until the beginning of June, when they are auctioned, with all the defendants that go to the beneficial organization.

It is only when the sale has finished the buyer discovering the song he has bought and which designer was behind the cover.

It is not the first time that Vella has tasks in Secret 7 “that has previously created record sleeves for the tastes of the Rolling Stones, St Vincent and The Chemical Brothers.

However, he still left him a little stressed.

“There is too much pressure! One year I was there and I was next to [father of British pop art] Peter Blake“He says.

“It is a really surprising cause and you want to create something brilliant to collect a lot of money for War Child.”

The beneficial organization began in response to Bosnian genocide. The help album, which he launched in 1995, had artists such as Oasis, Radiohead, Suede and Portishead. War Child now works in more than one country of discreets that help children living in war areas.

When describing the process of assembling its creation, Vella says that it implied “going through the thorough thing, something thing of the 20 iterations, all garbage”, before “suddenly you have that incredible moment Eureka.”

That moment of Eureka took a cover that considers being “quite dep” and “very significant”, Althegh, of course, won the revelation for which song he created it.

Vella says that the project is something that is proud to be part.

“It is such an incredible and powerful cause, which helps children in the countries devastated by war. It simply shows you how music and art can unite people.”

Secret 7 “Gallery, Greenwich Peninsula until June 1, with the 700 record sleeves that are sold at an online global auction on the website of the project in the help of War Child.