Actually is a design studio that specialises in graphic design and artwork for music

JARV IS...
Beyond The Pale


Album artwork and promo campaign
Rough Trade

__


Beyond the Pale is the debut album from JARV IS... on Rough Trade Records. This is the first original music from Jarvis Cocker since the ‘Further Complications’ album in 2009.

The cave themed artwork was designed in collaboration with Jarvis. This was carried across all of the individual releases including special Tip-On debosssed gatefold vinyl (glow in the dark!), standard vinyl, CD and ltd cassette.

Also promo items such as ltd edition JARV IS... tea (delicious!), a jigsaw, billboards, promo posters, shop displays, tour posters, badges, t-shirts, stickers, tote bags the lot!

A Lily
Nocturne Thunder


Album artwork
Bytes

__


Nocturne Thunder is a cousin to A Lily’s acclaimed 2020 album Sleep Through The Storm. The songs were mostly built live, looping and layering a single performance, pushing repetition and patterns.

Using elements of the artwork from the previous album (which used photos taken by the artists father) this new piece layers things again and pushes the colours in all sorts of directions? The orange and purple fade worked out rather nice eh?

GLOK
Pattern Recognition


Album artwork
Bytes

__


GLOK is the electronic alter ego of Andy Bell; best-known as the guitarist in venerated shoegazers Ride with a noteworthy solo career too... For this album Andy weaves together throbbing dubbed-out acid, steamy jack trax, levitational psychedelia, sparkling Balearic, shoegaze, art rock and Compass Point-style post punk.

The artwork is a futuristic, kaleidospic and distorted affair with an overload of colour and shapes. Yet grounded in all of this is a simplicity, with straightforward type and layers of photos supplied by Andy. It's the push and pull between electronic and psych.

Somerset House
Invitation


Print
Somerset House

__


Graphic design and print for special foil blocked invites for a Somerset House charity event. Using original photos taken by artists Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard a collage was created showing cut-up elements of different parts of the building.

The invite has a cut off corner creating a ‘cut-out-and-keep’ representation of the Somerset House identity.

JARV IS...
REMIX ED...


Album artwork
Rough Trade

__


Boasting re-imaginings and re-stylings from the likes of David Holmes, Dennis Bovell and Hot Chip among others, the record is a collaborative mix that offers new focus and insight on the music of one of this generation's greatest songwriters, while also allowing the remixers' own unique characters to take flight within JARV IS... creative cave.

The artwork also is a remix, taking the BEYOND THE PALE gentle cave dwelling vibe and pushing it into a vibrant green and super silver acid direction. The vinyl sleeve was double-printed to give it a shocking and bright effect. 

Bytes
Art direction


Album artwork/identity/promo
Bytes

__


Working with Bytes since the label inception in 2019. Including label art direction and identity and sleeve design for record sleeves and cassettes.

Includes original artwork for albums by Minotaur Shock, A Lily, Franz Kirmann and Andy Bell’s (Ride, Oasis) GLOK project. Including a personal highlight the GLOK - Dissident Remixed double vinyl including Andrew Weatherall remix.

LAUV
‘How I’m Feeling’ World Tour


Global print promotion
Kobalt

__


Huge promotional campaign for the LAUV world tour which sadly due to COVID was eventually cancelled.

Localised versions of posters, billboards, press ads, online ads, Spotify ads, bus wraps even, were created for a massive amount of territories including Australia, South America and Europe...

GLOK
Dissident & Dissident Remixed


Album artwork
Bytes

__


Vinyl artwork for Bytes for a release by Andy Bell (Ride, Oasis) under his electronic alias GLOK. Fusing synthwave and Detroit techno via John Carpenter soundtracks this album is a future motorik classic!

The idea for the artwork was to show a sense of time passing, so using long exposure shots of car headlights, a mesh of light trails and intersecting road markings were created. Also shown the double remix album with remixed artwork...

¡La Ruta!
EP


12” artwork
Days of Being Wild

__


Artwork and layout for ¡La Ruta! including artist identity.

¡La Ruta! is Martyn Walsh the bass player and songwriter of Inspiral Carpets and Sean Johnston a producer and DJ partner to the late Andrew Weatherall as A Love from Outer Space.

The record is a combination of electronics, live bass and swirling psychedelic organ. For the front they wanted a Danceteria style, DIY cut up 80’s NYC scene...

JARV IS...
HOUSE MUSIC ALL NIGHT LONG


4 x ltd 12”
Rough Trade

__


“Lost in the land of the living room. Adrift in the world of interiors. It's serious.”

JARV IS... managed to inadvertently predict the lock-down of 2020 with this song of claustrophobia. For the ltd 12” the most acid/vibrant paper possible in 4 day-glo colours was sourced. ‘Ain’t that the truth?’

JARV IS...
MUST I EVOLVE?


4 x ltd 12”
Rough Trade

__


Four special 12” releases of the JARV IS... single MUST I EVOLVE? The lurid cave image was printed on a folded sheet which was slipped inside a clear PVC outer sleeve. The sleeve had the super bright solid pink text printed on it.

The record is about a primordial rave amongst other things so the idea was to create an old school rave flyer. The image started life as a photo by the artist Andy Holden taken at a JARV IS... gig inside a cave in the Peak District! 

Frank Kirmann
Madrapour


Album artwork
Bytes

__


Franz’s album is called ‘Madrapour’ based on the book of the same name. An out of print German issue of the book from the 70s was sourced and the front cover was reworked and manipulated digitally to get the sweeping vortex of feedback and lines.

As with all Bytes releases there is the now obligatory circle cut-out. This time in a vibrant blue.

Seagrave
Mix series


Album/mixes artwork
Seagrave

__


Seagrave wanted a series of artwork for six of their album releases. They all had to have a recurring theme so a library of shapes and forms was created using brush and ink, these were then processed digitally so give them a mathematical and abstract look.

Also as part of the project was a series of mixes which expanded on the original shapes and forms.

Shinya Sugimoto, Jeremy Young with Julia Kent
Total Fiction


12” artwork
Phinery

__


Steve McQueen has a piece of work called Weight which is a gold mosquito net draped over a prison cell bed. Photos of this work and other shots taken at the same time became the starting point for the artwork.

The photographs were taken at an Artangel installation in old Reading Goal where Oscar Wilde was imprisoned.

Riton presents Gucci Soundsystem
feat. Jarvis Cocker
LET’S STICK AROUND


Single artwork
Ritontime

__


This is not a question of being wrong, or being right because if what we say is wrong, then that’s just fine. It’s more of a question of being on our side because then if what we say is right, at least we all tried.

Artwork for digital release. Also check out the video by Tim & Barry here. COP26, no miming... 

Let’s stick around.

Nucleic Acid Analysis
Label identity and artwork


Artwork and brand
Nucleic Acid Analysis

__


Label identity and artwork for the first nine releases on Bristol’s weird electronic/acid label Nucleic Acid Analysis.

Each of the sleeves was adapted from a single line drawing that was sent into space on the Pioneer F spacecraft, destined to be the first man made object to escape from the solar system into interstellar space.

© Actually Studio Ltd