Neville Brody

Art Evaluation
Neville Brody's art mainly leans towards typography, the creation of fonts and
letter forms. Neville Brody has designed fonts, album covers for bands and
artists and front covers for magazines such as The Face. A lot of the fonts he has
created are sans-serif fonts, but although sans-serif fonts are generally used for
their simplicity and legibility, Brody has used sans-serif fonts creatively
throughout his work. A lot of his work contains the major formal elements,
shape and line although colour is often present throughout his work and is
sometimes a major factor within it. Neville Brody's work features typography
which had either been stacked, pasted on top of each other, varying in opacity,
tilted, horizontal and vertical. Brody's fonts and covers almost always have
personality, and are never consistently similar. This makes his work unique and
spontaneous. Most typography within his work usually has colour, although
typography on The Face magazine covers, is either red, black or white.
Although blue hues and tones do feature.

Micro Phonies Cabaret Voltaire

1984

This album cover was designed by Neville Brody in 1984, the band is an English
electro band. The cover has an edgy, but kitschy feel to it, with grain on the cover and
the plus signs being the most bold. The bands album title on the cover is all in caps,

in a sans-serif font in white, this stands out well against the blue and black
background. The reason Brody chose a white font is to make sure that the bands
album title was legible to people browsing racks of record stores. The font used for
the bands name Cabaret Voltaire are similar to fonts used on other album covers for
the band. The reason this font looks familiar is most likely because Neville Brody has
designed quite a few single covers for the band as well. The font also resembles other
Brody fonts such as Insignia and FF Tyson. Although little details like the serifs on
the a and the r are different. The edgy but also kitschy look of the cover relates to
most of Neville Brody's work on The Face magazine, it also relates well to the bands
genre as electro bands usually have kitschy imagery and designs on their album
covers.
The formal elements that are most present in this piece of work, are colour, shape and
line. Tone is also a major element here too. The colours used are salmon pink, red,
yellow, cyan and black and white. The blue and black imagery gives the cover an
edgy and almost nightmarish feel, but the red and yellow plus signs detract from this
feeling as they are bright and bold. There is a strip down the centre of the cover, in
the shape of a bandage, that is a transparent salmon pink colour.
The overall cover design itself is quite geometric, but also abstract as even though the
plus signs are equal width apart, they are not completely consistent in colour and
pattern, as there is a sign missing where the bands name has been placed, instead a
horizontal line that is equal distance from the second plus sign, sits between the
words Cabaret and Voltaire. I personally think this was a good choice, as it stops
the imagery from getting repetitive and keeps it visually stimulating. The random
salmon pink strip down the centre also gives the cover a much more abstract feel, as
there is nothing else like it on the cover.
Brody was inspired early on in his education by the radical and rebellious punk
movement, although his work fits more with abstract and pop art movements. In his
years at college, his studied under the renowned painter, Ruskin Spear. He was also
influenced by Pop Art and Dadaism. Brody put a lot of effort into his work, aligning
blocks of text on a page and contrasting hand drawn images or photography, his work
was almost never legible, though, because he explored the limits of legibility to the
extremes.

Now, most of Brody's art was created traditionally, it was only in 1985 that he began
creating his pieces digitally. This cover for example, was printed using a four colour
process and the actual album sleeve was only printed a couple of times, as the
budgets were usually low for record companies. After he had dabbled in the record
industry he moved onto The Face magazine, and became the art director in 1986.
Brody also experimented with new typographic styles and redefined the relationship
between photography and text. With his art and experiments, Brody broke through
the standards and made an international impact on the appearance of magazines,
advertising and retail design. Using his work as a form of expression, he wanted to
make the people viewing and reading magazines, think. Although Brody broke the
rules of the graphic design world, he always made sure that his designs were
functional. According to Brody a good design was one that managed to visually
impress the reader, and not hinder reading or legibility. Instead of distracting the
reader, he sought to enhance their experience through design.
Neville Brody The Face
1985 Issue

This issue of The Face, is simplistic yet artistic. The key formal elements on this
cover would have to be, colour shape and form. While the text is straight and set upon
a baseline, I wouldn't say that line is an obvious element in this as the baseline is
invisible, if there were underlining, then line would be a factor. The cover gives off

an overall fun and joyful feel, it is professional to an extent, without being too
serious. The fonts used are all sans-serif fonts, ranging from the colour white, black,
to yellow and red. Green is also featured, but not to the same degree as the other
colours, black, white and red. Each coverline, and the masthead are all in caps, this
was probably done to ensure legibility and boldness. It is difficult to tell whether or
not the woman depicted on the cover is a photograph, or an illustration, you could say
it's even a combination of the two. Because of the grain on this photograph or scan,
the cover seems to have been created upon canvas, this gives it an even more artistic
vibe. The font is consistent throughout, apart from one cover line and the masthead
everything else is the same font, but in different sizes and colours. I'd say that the
cover has a relatively punk-y vibe to it, because of the grungy and urban colours
used. The woman depicted has a hairstyle that I would personally view as punk or
androgynous. The cover has actually followed a few magazine conventions I think,
with the masthead being at the top of the page, and the woman depicted being placed
or painted in the dead centre of the cover. The coverlines also, because they are
placed either side of the depiction, not disrupting or invading the portrait. This is
actually quite a minimalistic cover, for Brody, you do not see the chaotic layering and
colour experimentation that you'd see on his more recent work.

Neville Brody
The Face - Tina Turner Spread 1957

This is an old spread from The Face Magazine that Neville Brody designed in 1957.
This spread radically challenges the codes and conventions of the magazine industry
as the whole spread is much more focused on the artistic aspect of typography and
graphic design. This spread is arranged in a way that forces the reader to actually read
the article, instead of just glossing over it.
Now, the photo (or scan) is quite faded but from what I can tell, most of the fonts are
sans-serif. The words cry me a river and the T that acts as a drop cap for the lead
in art seem to have serifs though, but these words and letters act as the visually
stimulating fonts on the page. This spread definitely follows Brodies philosophy of a
good spread, as it is artistic and stimulating, but also legible enough to read fully and
be understood. Now, this spread bears features that we see constantly in modern
graphic design, such as a drop cap, centre aligned text, and legible sans-serif fonts.
Because of the fact that Neville Brody was such an icon within the Graphic Design
world, I think it is fair to say that most of the modern looks we see in magazines
today are used so frequently and so commonly are because of the way Brody changed
the Graphic Design industry.
The spreads colour scheme is monochromatic, although there does seem to be a
brown tint to the image and the body text, although this could just be because of how
the picture or scan turned out. The spread has an overall casual and happy feel, as the
model (Tina Turner) is smiling casually.

Techniques
Neville Brody used a variety of techniques to create his pieces. Most of his
works (before computers were invented) were created traditionally and then
photographed. His techniques included, painting, drawing, collages and
rubbings. Brody often created 3-D models, plaster casts and wood carvings, and
then photographed them for his designs. His album cover designs are a good
example of this.
Neville Brody is still and continues to be one of the most famous and active
Graphic Designers of the 20th Century. He has inspired many throughout his
career and still continues to do so. His artistic use of typography sets a standard
within the industry, and encourages students, and artists alike to really examine,
challenge and break the codes of the Graphic Design industry. His artistic
approach allows people to not only create inspirational Graphic Designs for the
future artists within the industry, but allows people to experiment and create a
style that is unique to them personally.