ANDREW DINELEY
JOHN FOXX
The solo career of John Foxx coincided with the post-punk birth of electropop in the UK. Though his first four albums all charted, as did eight of his singles, he remains something of an enigma in the electronic music genre. Still prolific today, and working with artists across a broad range of disciplines, he offers Classic Pop a rare insight into the visuals behind the audio – a journey that began in the late Seventies with Ultravox…
How did you begin to get involved in the design of your records?
Record companies in those days were pretty chaotic, especially the independents. The visuals were often farmed out or left to chance. By the end of 1977, I realised I had to take it in hand. We were at the beginning of [third album] Systems Of Romance, a record that was a deliberate distancing of Ultravox from everything else at that time. I devised new imagery that was as powerful as the ripped-and-torn punk, deliberately detached, reflecting what we were about – European, electronic, lyrical. That was my brief to myself, a complete antifashion statement, running against everything that was dominant. It was equal parts instinct, defiance and exhaustion.
I went to a photo library and chose the Systems Of Romance cover photographs. I wanted an oblique but engaging and mysterious set of images that could stand up for themselves. I drew out the cover layout, specifying the typeface, background colours, and so on. I had to devise swift methods of making covers that satisfied me, as well as the stringent time frame. I’d always liked classical typography, so asked some very good designers who’d been at the Royal College of Art if they would help. These became the partners at Ansell/ Sadgrove. I was also becoming aware of designers like Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville and photographers such as Brian Griffin, and I vowed I’d work with them all eventually.