Sizer Cassette Art Set 3

I've been on a HEAVY retro kick the last few days, digging around in the foundations of how I dealt with art and music during my college years in the mid 80's.

One thing that was a constant was my love affair with music, and my wish to find ways to integrate the art I was doing with the music I was buying way too much of. It came together in the form of making custom cassette cases for all the mix tapes and tapes of albums I was making so I could have my music on the go (this is how we did it in the 80's kids! OLD SCHOOL!) From the mid 80's to the late 90's, I was on a kick, using all the influences I had around me to try out on these tape covers, which I literally used as warm-up exercises between classes and after I got a design job after college, what I would do on my lunch hours. I could try out new techniques, new type, and new materials. Rub-down type, heat-transfer foils, Xerox transfers, printing on vellum, all was fair game, including the possibilities offered by the Macs I was using as a new tool in my work.

Inspired by Neville Brody, April Griemann, Emigre magazine, 23 envelope, Peter Saville and the design/new wave/collage that was the 80's, I made a lot of tape covers. At this point, I have 750 cassettes worth of handmade covers. Some pretty boring, but these are some of what I feel to be the cream of the crop...

This group: some illustration/hand mark based designs