This was a fun job; fun meaning I had a fairly free hand within the image the band had for their music, which was sort of experimental, while they were interested in Russian historical images and obscure horror and art house films. The Russian influence inspired the titles the letters of which were lifted from typography books and then made into the words. I was particularly pleased with the catalogue number NTV10! The Screaming Trees did get confused with their more famous American namesakes in the press at times which didn’t help their career.
The back was again largely type driven, but this time with Japanese letter forms added to pad out each line. Colour wise I was restricted to black and red which worked for the design, and I went with an open disco type centre to allow the labels to be seen and read.
I always liked to make the labels into more than just titles. The band supplied me with the face and hands images, the latter from a film still. I added the texture to one side to give it a distressed look using a photocopier. The titles were all done by a typesetter (it was 1986, the Mac was still a few years off being practical) and then I made the artwork up on board, with an overlay for the red layer. I also did the label’s new logo as part of a rebranding exercise. Native Records was based upstairs in an old works close to the centre of Doncaster, and I used to trail over on the train with the art on boards for meetings.
I did the group’s follow up which was a 12″ and 7″ and had also finished off a third which never got released. I will try and find the artwork for that anon. The band, who had started out as a regular five piece but then contracted to a duo, issued a couple more records into 1988 but then called it a day.
Most of the art was produced using a large Agfa reprographic camera and the copyproof photographic system. This allowed sheets about A3 size to be shot using a paper contract negative system, with the images then cut up and pasted on to board. Copyproof was fantastic; you shot the artwork then fed the paper negative into a roller processor with a receptor sheet, in baths of chemicals, and got a really nice contrasty positive out the other end.
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