Underworld – “Born Slippy / Nuxx” (2003) single cover
This is the cover art of the legendary 1995 techno song “Born Slippy (Nuxx)” by Underworld which was most famously featured in Danny Boyle’s Trainspotting. This specific design was conceived for the release of the remixes of the original song in 2003. The design follows the design direction for the compilation Underworld – 1992–2002.
The design by Tomato, a design and film collective that included Underworld members Karl Hyde and Rick Smith, is minimal, but features an intricate set of ligatures. First of all, the text doesn’t respect the basic rule that a word should fit on a single line: it’s unusual to break “underworld” before the last two letters. This disposition allows for a interlinear ligature between the stems of the initial letters u l n n across the four lines. The two final r’s form another interlinear ligature. Like the letterspacing, the linespacing is very tight – so tight that the ascender of d enters the aperture of n, and the bowls of b and the p are so close that they touch. This type of typography emphasizes the geometric nature of the letterforms used in the design, further accentuated by the long dash.
