Design of the week : Maria McCloy
We’re so used to the cheap, garish, characterless and boring mass-produced album covers of most South African artists (a perfect example is the new Brenda Fassie cover), it’s refreshing to see the cover art created by graphic designer Nicholas Hauser and Coil Productions photographer Lianne Cox.
Most of the decent kwaito/ d’gong album covers, like the new Chiskop (Relax), Skeem (Salute) and Bongo Maffin (Final Entry), are designed by them.
Cox is happiest with the Chiskop picture: “It’s shot in the ghetto, where these guys come from. They posed really well, are proud of where they come from and wanted to be photographed there, instead of pretending to be someone else.”
All of this tells Cox that: “South Africans have a fashion and a style that belongs to us – people aren’t trying to be American.”
Aside from making covers that are great to look at, Hauser usually slips social commentary into his work. For example, the Chiskop cover uses the letters C and K very large. Hauser states: “For me it was a statement about consumerism. Everywhere we go we see big Calvin Klein posters, so I thought I’d make a comment on CK with Chiskop.”
Hauser says that on the Skeem cover he “was pressured to put on a big retail Skeem logo [that was used on their first album cover] like Coca-Cola. I’m not crazy about that, I like to keep it a bit more subtle.”
Which is part of the reason he likes the Bongo Maffin cover best. “It’s set a slightly new standard for branding. You know when people put their names on covers it’s usually big, the album title name is quite small and the group name is on what looks like a Levis label.”
On the inner sleeve, the Levis-like label is placed on a gun. What’s that all about?
“It’s an icon, a potent image. Guns are everywhere, they’re all people think about,” says Hauser. He knows – when his house was robbed the child’s revolver used on the cover was the only thing stolen.