Hardformat

I want to recover and give back a little bit of that lost intelligence and bravery, by taking inspiration (apart from the music itself) from the ideas of the Italian artists and the designers who produced some of the most impressive work of the last century: clearly De Chirico (the Magic Architecture series for the new composers’ series – and yes, Borges too, in the sense of being stranded in some arcane landscape, feeling a sense of nostalgia for some lost myth); but also the Italian “informal” art of the fifties (MAC, Capogrossi, Burri) for the Zeit series.

Magic Architecture is how I call my design project for this series. These composers are creating completely new sonic worlds, opening up new horizons. I just wanted to reflect this approach, and give the music a wider scenario to live in (each cover is specifically designed for the music on each CD).

The design approach also creates a common ground for these publications, and that is a reflection on the way we choose the music: we want to create an original and coherent vision both musically and visually.

Stucchi has also kindly furnished Hard Format with some of his preliminary sketches:

Each CD identifies and utilises a particular motif, whether it be an embossed logo (Chop Shop), die-cut lettering (Zbigniew Karkowski), darkness (Franciso López’s CD comes complete with blindfold) or touch (the upper face of the John Duncan and Carl Michael Von Hausswolff CD not only presents a line of Braille, but the outer case also feels almost like skin to the touch). There is never a sense that any of these devices is contrived, but instead that each is presented as a thoughtful response to the artist’s work.

Randy Yau writes:

I have always been partial to designing for the genre of ‘experimental music / noise / sound art’ because it intersects my professional work as a designer and my personal work and interest in the sonic arts. As a designer, the aim is always to facilitate—to discover and design some kind of truth for the client with a discerning eye. With the same philosophy toward music design and packaging, I will always engage with the artist to discover the story behind the music in order to arrive at some conceptual approach toward the design. The intensity and conceptual foundation of the genre itself always presents a rich narrative that goes beyond aesthetics, and fuels much of my design thinking. Of course there is an overall consistency in design sensibility, but each individual design was arrived at with some discourse and intent to reveal, support and elevate the conceptual nature of the music. For example, for Jason Kahn’s “Vanishing Point”, I approached printing methods with layers of ink the same way Kahn approached his music with white noise. As music is totally experiential, tactility and touch has always been an important element to consider in packaging. For me, it completes the experience.

Short Biography:

Randy Yau is a designer, sound artist and curator. He is currently an art director and designer at the distinguished San Francisco firm, Tolleson Design. Yau has been active in the sonic arts since the early 90s and continues to advocate the arts as Executive Director of the non-profit sound arts organization, 23five Incorporated.