Neville Brody

Neville Brody: Background Information

-Neville Brody is an influential British graphic designer born in Southgate, London. He Studied at LCP (London College of Printing) where he learned fine art printing techniques.

-He is most famous for his New Wave style, which was at its height during the 1980s. He produced album artwork for popular New Wave acts such as Depeche Mode and The Human League.

-Brody was art editor for style magazines The Face (1981-1986) and Arena (1987-1990), publications that are still going strong to this day.

-Brody’s trademark style included a use of bold, unconventional layouts. -He set up his own company specializing in the design of lettering called ‘Fontworks’. Brody has invented his own fonts, ‘Insignia’ being one of his more famous designs.

-Brody designed the typeface on England’s kit for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil.

-Brody is famous for working in ‘mixed media’. This means he uses a variety of different methods and materials in a single design, often combining hand- made approaches with computer work.

-Brody feels the reason behind the way the design is presented is more important than what the words literally say.

-Brody’s book ‘The Graphic Language of Neville Brody’ is the biggest selling graphic design publication ever.

‘Just Bounce It’ Poster Design for Nike (1988)

Key Information

-This is a commercial poster for Nike trainers, produced in 1988

-This design would have appeared in magazines and on billboards as part of a UK advertising campaign.

-Nike’s famous slogan ‘Just Do It’ is elaborated on in this design, with several sporty variations of the phrase appearing throughout the poster, such as ‘just bounce it’ and ‘just slam it’.

-The portrait photograph featured in the design appears to be of a teenage boy. This gives the design a youthful energy and suggests that the brand is geared towards a younger, fashion conscious generation.

-Brophy has claimed that his arrangement of text on the right hand side of the design purposely resembles a simplified map of the UK. This reflects Nike’s far- reaching influence at the cutting edge of the fashion and leisure industry at the time.

Style/Processes

-The design works as a positive/negative image that is split vertically down the middle, with each side appearing polar opposite. The left side of the design is predominantly black with white text and the right is predominantly white with black text. This gives a very striking visual impact.

-The Nike logo, although small, stands out because of Brody’s use of colour. The bright red is very bold against the white of the background. The minimal use of colour in what is mainly a black and white design means that our eye is drawn to this key detail of the poster.

-The text is arranged quite randomly in the design. Although the font style is the same throughout, it varies in size, even within a single word. All letters are lowercase.

-The direction of the lettering also varies, with some words reading from right to left and others reading upwards and downwards. This gives a disorientating effect. -The word ‘bounce’ appears to be doing just that: bouncing. This illusion is achieved by offsetting some of the letters so that they are higher/lower than the rest of the word. This gives an active, energetic look.

-The portrait in the piece gives detail to what would otherwise be quite a simplistic, blocky design. This offers an effective contrast.

-The portrait photograph is dramatically lit, with the highlights appearing very bright (virtually white) and the shadows appearing pure black. These exaggerated tones coordinate well with the black and white palette of the poster as a whole.

Use of colour

• The text is done in black and white only making it striking and stand out • The colours in the person’s face in the image are blended which makes them stand out against the flat font in the poster • The left hand side of the poster has dark colours and the right has light colours. The contrast of light and dark adds punch to the poster.

Materials/techniques • The work has been completed on Photoshop only giving the work a clean cut, crisp look •NB has used a realistic face on the left with smooth blends. On the right there is only text with a small shoe that is made of solid colour only. The contrast of no tone and tone adds a strong visual impact • The fonts are white on the left and black on the right. The contrast of black and white in both halves makes the work stand out

Visual elements • The fonts go horizontal on the left hand side and up and down on the right. The contrast of directions makes you look round the whole poster •NB has used a realistic face on the left with smooth blends. On the right there is only text with a small image of a shoe. The contrast of no tone and tone adds a strong visual impact. • All of the colours in the poster are black and white and a hint of red. The colour choice adds impact to the work as black, white and red are colours that really stand out and were used in World War 2 propaganda posters to catch people’s eye.

Target Market • Young sporty people who like clean cut images • The whole of the British public as the fonts and shoes on the right are in the shape of the British Isles. • Energetic people as the letters are clean cut and go in different directions and are different sizes. This would appeal to young people who like exercise.

Sources of inspiration •NB was inspired by political posters in the 1980’s. You can see his interest in politics in his Nike advert because there are large one word fonts sitting vertically and horizontally across the poster. This is similar to many political posters, including Labour, where key words or slogans are displayed largely to get a message across. • Neville Brody was heavily influenced by Punk music and the attitudes associated with it. He was very rebellious during his time at college and was almost thrown out because of his anti-establishment stance. You can see Brody’s interest in Punk music in the Nike advert as the fonts he uses in it do not read normally. The letters are different sizes, go in different directions and are not level with each other. • Neville Brody used the early version of the Apple Mac to produce some of his designs. He has championed the use of digital media and has embraced the potential of the computer. You can see Brody’s interest in using digital media as he has used Photoshop to produce the fonts which are both big and small and also run horizontally and vertically in the poster.