Chris Forsyth – Techno Top album art

Techno Top is the fourth volume in Chris Forsyth’s ongoing Solar Live series of high quality live releases, and was just released via Bandcamp.

Darryl Norsen designed the digital album artwork. I admire Darryl’s work and am especially fond of the way he digs up predigital typefaces that have fallen into oblivion, and skillfully casts them for his creations. While this cover obviously revels in a 1960s/1970s aesthetic, it does so from an informed, contemporary perspective, and brings together several elements (compare e.g. the bichromatic type on a Sweet single and the photo of Medicine Head) for a concentrated best-of.

Darryl comments on the design:

Chris and I have now worked together for several years and we both suckers for bootleg and free jazz vinyl artwork. Techno Top obviously nods heavily to both of those with the blown out band member faces that leave much to your imagination within their shapes. The choice of using Shotgun Loaded and Yagi Link Double was intentional: Shotgun adds the weight to Chris’ name so you see his name first. Yagi Link is a direct line to the song title as I felt like we needed that kind of modern linear font that says ‘Yeah I am electronic music!’ (though Chris is very much a rock ’n’ roller). The smaller type is all done in Futura Medium and Bold – I have a thing for Futura in that it pairs pretty well with any other 1960s or 1970s typeface.