Барни Бабблз: Графический художник и британская музыка 70-х и 80-х

English graphic artist (1942–1983)

Barney Bubbles (born Colin Fulcher; 30 July 1942 – 14 November 1983) was an English graphic artist whose work encompassed graphic design and music video direction. Bubbles, who also sketched and painted privately, is best known for his distinctive contribution to the design practices associated with the British independent music scene of the 1970s and 1980s. His record sleeves, laden with symbols and riddles, were his most recognisable output.

Fulcher was born in Tranmere Road, Whitton, Middlesex (now Greater London), in July 1942. He attended Isleworth Grammar School. In 1958 he embarked on a retail display course for a National Diploma in Design (NDD) at the art school of Twickenham College of Technology. During his five years at the college Fulcher received a multi disciplinary education that included training in cardboard design, display and packaging, skills that would be utilised later in his record sleeve work.

After leaving college in 1963 Fulcher worked as an assistant at the design company Michael Tucker + Associates in London. Its clients included Pirelli. In a rare interview in November 1981 in The Face, Bubbles described Tucker's discipline as "very Swiss; very hard; unjustified, very grey; and he taught me everything about typography." Tucker's studio produced the posters for Hugh Hudson's Pirelli sponsored film The Tortoise & The Hare (1967), for which Fulcher designed the poster lettering on a freelance basis. Bubbles' son, Aten Skinner, was born in 1972.

While he was working at Friends, Bubbles formed an association with Hawkwind and became responsible for a run of their album sleeves, including In Search of Space, Doremi Fasol Latido and Space Ritual. Bubbles engaged in many aspects of the group's visual identity, titling releases and designing posters, adverts, stage decoration and performance plans, some of which were adorned with mystical and mock Teutonic insignia. In 1972 Bubbles produced the triple LP package Glastonbury Fayre. This comprised a six panel fold out card sleeve, two poster inserts, a booklet and a cut out and build miniature pyramid, housed in a clear vinyl bag (with two sleeve variations and three label variations). From 1973 onwards, Bubbles increasingly avoided credits for his artwork, typically working anonymously or occasionally adopting alternative pseudonyms. During this period he designed album sleeves and additional material for such acts as the Sutherland Brothers, Kevin Coyne, Edgar Broughton Band, Chilli Willi and the Red Hot Peppers, Quiver, the Kursaal Flyers and Michael Moorcock and the Deep Fix. In 1976 his design relationship with Hawkwind came to an end. It was rekindled once, in 1978, for the Hawklords spin off, but otherwise continued only with design commissions for projects involving the band's saxophonist Nik Turner.

Barney Bubbles directed several videos, including the Specials' "Ghost Town", Squeeze's "Is That Love" and "Tempted", Elvis Costello's "Clubland" and "New Lace Sleeves", and Fun Boy Three's "The Lunatics (Have Taken Over the Asylum)". Two promos for the punk act Johnny Moped, "Incendiary Device" and "Darling Let's Have Another Baby", were never commercially released to broadcasters. "A good video can sell a record which might not do so well," Bubbles told Smash Hits magazine in 1982. "The record companies know that. I think Chrysalis would agree that The Specials' 'Ghost Town' video helped sales a good deal. This year I intend to make videos which are really inexpensive but really inventive. It can be done, you know."

In 1979, riding on the reputation of his work for Stiff, Bubbles was engaged by the UK music newspaper New Musical Express to spearhead an overhaul of its decades old brand. Bubbles' redesign incorporated elements of Pop art and 1920s Soviet poster art into a "sleek, forward looking" graphic format. His restyling included a fresh logo with "clean, stencilled, military style lettering", which heralded the title's change from New Musical Express to NME.

In 1979 Derek Boshier curated an exhibition entitled Lives at the Hayward Gallery, London, and he commissioned Bubbles to design the catalogue and poster. Together with the photographer Chris Gabrin, Bubbles also exhibited a video and mixed media installation in the exhibition. In the early 1980s Bubbles created furniture designs, some of which were featured in The Face, November 1981. In 1982 Bubbles conceived the album Ersatz, working primarily with Nik Turner and other musicians from Inner City Unit. The LP was released under the name of The Imperial Pompadours. Bubbles painted privately, increasingly in the early 1980s.

Fulcher, who suffered from manic depression, committed suicide in London on 14 November 1983 by gassing himself, trapping the fumes in a plastic bag he placed over his head, at the age of 41. He had considerable personal and financial worries, and had fallen out of fashion in the early 1980s. His designs for record sleeves were being rejected by musicians and record companies, and he was being investigated by the Inland Revenue for unpaid taxes dating back several years. He was also displaying increasingly erratic behaviour, alarming close friends by lacerating his face with razor blades and making threats to kill himself.

Reasons To Be Cheerful: The Life & Work of Barney Bubbles, a hybrid monograph/biography by Paul Gorman containing 400 plus images of artworks by Bubbles and contributions from British designers Peter Saville and Malcolm Garrett along with Billy Bragg was published in November 2008 by independent British imprint Adelita. The book was welcomed as a long overdue recognition of Bubbles' achievements and selected by British music magazine Mojo as its Book Of The Year. A revised and updated second edition of Reasons To Be Cheerful, with an additional contribution by US graphic artist Art Chantry, was published by Adelita in October 2010. The third edition of the monograph, retitled The Wild World of Barney Bubbles: Graphic Design and the Art of Music, with a new cover and updated sections including previously unpublished designs and an essay by American graphic designer Clarita Hinojosa, was published by Thames & Hudson in June 2022 in the UK and in July 2022 in the US. A companion limited edition box set, A Box of Bubbles, containing the monograph with a different jacket and reproductions of the designer's artworks for Ian Dury, Hawkwind and the Glastonbury Fayre triple LP package, is published by specialist imprint Volume in September 2022.

Representing family members, the Barney Bubbles Estate controls the intellectual copyrights in hundreds of original designs by Bubbles and has worked with others to ensure that the designer's legacy is protected. Projects include a capsule collection of shirts bearing Bubbles designs with Fred Perry in 2017, Elvis Costello and Universal Music's 2020 box set reissue of Costello's 1979 album Armed Forces, the 12 inch vinyl rerelease of "Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick" for Record Store Day 2021 with the Ian Dury Estate and music group BMG and a collaboration of four T shirts with New York streetwear label Noah in 2022. Examples of rare and hitherto unseen work from Bubbles' vast archive is posted regularly on the Estate's Instagram account, and the Estate also has an online shop marketing original designs on apparel and other media.