All Things Considered

Barney Bubbles
Posted by Simon Lewin

I remember Dad having a couple of the variations of this Ian Dury album - printed on a series of different wallpapers.

"Reasons To Be Cheerful" by Paul Gorman celebrates the work of graphic designer Barney Bubbles.

Here's an extract of a review by Alice Rawsthorn from the New York Times:

"After years of scraping by on a pittance from designing record covers for indie labels, Barney Bubbles had turned 40 and needed to make some money. He did the rounds of the big London record companies, only to be told by several executives that they had met with younger designers who were passing off his work as their own.

Shameful though that was, it was not entirely surprising. Shy, introspective and fragile, Barney Bubbles shunned publicity and seldom signed his designs. On the rare occasions that he did, it was mostly under an alias. He credited himself on one record sleeve by drawing a dog, and cited his tax code on another. When the magazine The Face asked him for a portrait to illustrate the only interview he ever did, in 1981, he gave them fragments of different photographs."

Posted by Simon Lewin on February 24th, 2009