🎵 IT078: 80s Graveyard
✏️ Hot Yoghurt
🗓 06.10.20
Hot Yoghurt is the collaborative work of creative duo Nic (illustrator specialising in typography) and John (designer), based in Leipzig (originally from Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire respectively)
Hey pals! Can you tell us a little bit about your tape and your song selections?
John: Hello! Yes. Well, there's a lot to unpack about the eighties, but for me the dark pop music written during this time has a timeless quality. These are a selection of songs that give off a shiver and a jangly shimmer, probably best enjoyed strolling through a graveyard on a dreaded sunny day.
What direction did you take with your cover art, and what was your process?
Nic: I wanted to create something that gives the impression of being dark, but with bright 80s shellsuit colours. The mood of the playlist is quite dreamy, but a melancholic dreamy! I wanted to include the playlist title in the image as lettering is what I do, and it kind of made sense to work gravestones and a full moon and clouds into it. I drew it all in Procreate, with a bit of tidying up and tweaking in Photoshop.
What are your fave album covers, records with a great music and artwork combo, or musical projects with a visual component?
Nic: Hunky Dory - it uses Zipper as a typeface! Also the double album of War of the Worlds - a bizarre 70s musical version of the novel featuring David Essex and Phil Lynott - which has a supremely intricately illustrated cover and loads of illustrations in the liner notes. I was obsessed with that as a kid. Also, Becky & Joe’s music video for “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” by Tame Impala is maybe my favourite music video.
✏️ Hot Yoghurt
🗓 06.10.20
Hot Yoghurt is the collaborative work of creative duo Nic (illustrator specialising in typography) and John (designer), based in Leipzig (originally from Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire respectively)
Hey pals! Can you tell us a little bit about your tape and your song selections?
John: Hello! Yes. Well, there's a lot to unpack about the eighties, but for me the dark pop music written during this time has a timeless quality. These are a selection of songs that give off a shiver and a jangly shimmer, probably best enjoyed strolling through a graveyard on a dreaded sunny day.
What direction did you take with your cover art, and what was your process?
Nic: I wanted to create something that gives the impression of being dark, but with bright 80s shellsuit colours. The mood of the playlist is quite dreamy, but a melancholic dreamy! I wanted to include the playlist title in the image as lettering is what I do, and it kind of made sense to work gravestones and a full moon and clouds into it. I drew it all in Procreate, with a bit of tidying up and tweaking in Photoshop.
What are your fave album covers, records with a great music and artwork combo, or musical projects with a visual component?
Nic: Hunky Dory - it uses Zipper as a typeface! Also the double album of War of the Worlds - a bizarre 70s musical version of the novel featuring David Essex and Phil Lynott - which has a supremely intricately illustrated cover and loads of illustrations in the liner notes. I was obsessed with that as a kid. Also, Becky & Joe’s music video for “Feels Like We Only Go Backwards” by Tame Impala is maybe my favourite music video.
Hunky Dory – David Bowie1971, RCA Victor
Artwork: George Underwood, Terry Pastor
Jeff Wayne’s Musical Version of War of the Worlds – Jeff Wayne
1978, CBS
Artwork: Peter Goodfellow
Art Dir, typography: John Pasche
John: I like album covers you can have a good stare at, like Nuggets or Definitely Maybe.
Definitely Maybe – Oasis
1994, Creation Records
Design, art dir – Brian Cannon, Microdot
Photography: Michael Spencer Jones
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 – Various artist
1972, Elektra
Artwork; Abe Gurvin
What did you listen to growing up?
Nic: My parents have good taste in music so there was always relatively ‘cool’ music being played at home - David Bowie, Pink Floyd, The Cure, Rolling Stones, Nirvana spring to mind. As a teenager I listened a lot to Elephant by the White Stripes and Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not by the Arctic Monkeys. You can probably guess my age very accurately from that.
John: My folks played The Drifters, Roxy Music and Elton John in the car on the way to football matches, I used to get fired up listening to “I’m Still Standing” (still do!). Growing up I watched a lot of MTV when they actually played music videos, so I have an encyclopedic knowledge of random nineties and naughties lyrics, which, let’s be honest, is quite useless.
And what’s on heavy rotation for you at the moment?
Nic: Lizzo. Basically just Lizzo.
John: For obvious reasons at the moment, I tend to go for comfort music so anything that’s soft and otherworldly like Khruangbin, Aldous Harding, Cigarettes After Sex, Abbey Road. And sometimes Dua Lipa.
What’s happening in your creative world at the moment?
During Covid, NOT MUCH. We have an online shop and a physical shop here in Leipzig.
Where can we find you?
Instagram is probably the most up to date - @hhhotyoghurt. And the website above. Nic can also be found at @ficnarrell.
Cheers, Nic and John!