50 years of the Rolling Stones: How designers of stunning new commemorative book created amazing front cover
By Mirror.co.uk
24 Apr 2012 16:17
Behind-the-scenes with designers of Rolling Stones' amazing new book
As all true fans are well aware, 2012 marks the Rolling Stones ’ 50th anniversary – and the Mirror’s photographers have been there to capture all the ups and downs along the way.
Crammed with superb snaps hand-picked by Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, Charlie Watts and Ronnie Wood, The Rolling Stones: 50 is a must for any die hard rock ‘n’ roller.
To whet your appetite, check out 50 great photos from our Mirror archive, some of which will feature in the book .
But how did the designers create such a stunning cover for the collection? Thames & Hudson blogger Toby tells the behind-the-scenes story...
Thanks to the Mirror’s extensive archive of Rolling Stones photographs, the art direction team at Studio Fury set about selecting and processing images of Mick, Keith, Charlie and Ronnie into circular crops that could be made into button badges.
Designer Ian Kennedy then set about turning the circle images into 2,500 badges and prepared the board they would be mounted on.
Ian had to work especially hard on this phase because the printed photo sheets were slightly too thick for the badge-machine and kept getting stuck.
For two solid days in March, Ian and his daughters Connie and Ava put the final piece together.
The trio became “a well-oiled machine”, according to Ian - with one person laying out the badges, one applying glue and the third placing them. A total of 10 sticks of industrial silicone sealant were used.
Ian was pleased with the final piece. He said: “I thought it looked strong, and the concept worked well. Hopefully people will realise it was handmade, if they look closely.”
Photographer Ed Park was then on hand to photograph the artwork for the book, turning their shared studio into a pop-up photo studio for the day, covering everything with black fabric to minimize reflections.
Ed wanted to make the artwork look as natural as possible. He said: “The technical challenge was to retain, in the photograph, a feeling of the artwork’s existence as a real object, so I used daylight from an overhead skylight, giving highlights and shadows of various sizes and shapes occurring naturally across the piece.”
When the images of the artwork arrived at publishers Thames & Hudson, designer Angela Won-Yin Mak worked with production chief Ginny Liggit to make sure that the photograph accurately reproduced the original artwork into print.
One complicated part of the process was choosing the right font for the word ’50′ – some fonts looked too much like the word ‘SO’, and Angela had to go through numerous fonts to find the perfect one.
But everyone is thrilled with how the collaboration has turned out.
Start us up: The five all together in 1964
Angela observes: “The tongue is a strong icon and from afar this is what you see and instantly recognise.
“But if you look closer you notice that each badge is actually a snapshot of the band’s past. As you get closer to the image, you discover all the stories within it.”
The book is published by Thames & Hudson and will be available from all bookshops on July 12, for £29.95, but can be pre-ordered now.
Click here for the Amazon page and here for more information on the Thames & Hudson website.
What is your favourite Rolling Stones moment? Share your memories by commenting below...
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