The Wave Pictures on how they designed their own record sleeves

God we love a DIY aesthetic. Though that very indie-pop sensibility of all hands on deck, be it writing sweet ditties, sending little tapes off to niche radio stations or hand-printing album artwork may now seem slightly antiquated, we find it as charming as ever. That’s why we were so keen to have a natter with indie three-piece The Wave Pictures. The band formed in 1998 in Leicestershire, and comprises drummer Jonny Helm, frontman David Tattersall and bass-wielder Franic Rozycki. Franic and David design the artwork for the band’s releases themselves, bless ’em, so we had a chat with David about his creative process, the joy of analogue and what makes a great sleeve design.

Do you do all the artwork? I read that you package it all by hand too….

Yes, we design it ourselves. We started out by making them all by hand but since we signed to a record label we get them mass-produced in a factory somewhere. I much prefer this! The fun part is designing it I suppose. I design some of them and Franic designs some of them. Franic does much more of the work than me I have to admit. However, our latest album, Great Big Flamingo Burning Moon, is a collaboration with Wild Billy Childish, so it seemed natural to ask him to design the artwork. He is an artist, after all! So, for the first time, someone else designed the front cover of a Wave Pictures record. But we designed all the others ourselves.

What do you like about creating the artwork yourself? I guess it must give you more freedom, not being tied to another person’s vision…

Yes, it’s like every other aspect of being in a band. You want to do it yourself, because it’s fun and also because you want to be the one who decides how it looks, just like you want to be the one who decides how it sounds. The less people that get involved the better, in my opinion. There are very few good films made and the reason for this is that a film necessarily involves a tremendous amount of collaboration. Many many great scripts must have been ruined by producers, directors, actors, editors etc. With making music you’re basically trying to get something from your mind to the mind of the listener, uncorrupted. So, you want as few other people as possible putting their oar in! That goes for the artwork just as it goes for every other aspect of making a record.

Where do you work?

To be honest, I don’t really think of any of those things as work. Making the front covers and stuff… that’s fun. We do that at home. I would do something in my flat, or Franic does it in his flat. I tend to do stuff lying on the sofa, but I think Franic sits at a desk. He tends to use a computer more too. I tend to make a cover on a piece of paper, just A4 paper which I cut off at one end to make square, and then when I’m happy with it I scan it into a computer. I can’t use those computer programmes where you move things around and crop them and all that. Franic knows how to do that stuff so he tends to go about making a cover in a different way, starting with the computer.

What makes a great record sleeve design?

My friend Hugh has a very solid theory, that basically stops you over-thinking it too much. He says that you can’t go wrong with a good photograph of the people who make the music. I suppose that you can have a lot of ambitions when you’re making a record cover but the truth is that the best ones are very simple. Usually just a good-looking photo of the band or the singer does the job. That’s all there is to it. If I think of my very favourite record covers, like Nashville Skyline by Bob Dylan or Down By The Jetty by Dr. Feelgood or Wreckless Eric’s debut album… well, I’d have to say that all my favourite record covers are just a good-looking picture of the people making the music. It’s very old-fashioned for a lot of people.

Talk us through the process you go through when designing your own sleeves

There’s not much to it really. I make things on bits of paper and then scan them in. For instance, the inner-sleeve booklets, with the lyrics and all that, I simply type them out in a Word document and Franic takes care of everything else. I like to put the lyrics in an album because often when I am listening to other people’s music I hear a line that I can’t quite catch and I just want to quickly look up what they said. Also, it’s a safe place to keep all of my lyrics in case I need to look up a song of mine that I have forgotten! Otherwise, everything is just on bits of paper floating around in the world and I might lose them forever!

If you could pick anyone in the world, dead or alive, to design a Wave Pictures sleeve, who would it be?

I like David Hockney an awful lot. I like his photographic collages and his paintings. I always enjoy everything I see that he does. Lately he has been doing these pictures using his iPad and they are quite beautiful. It shocked me: I am such a Luddite I wouldn’t have believed anything good could come out of an iPad. But Hockney is a genius. Everything he does is OK with me. And he seems like a very nice and thoughtful man too. I like to read interviews with him or hear him talk. He’s the first person I could think of. I’m sure he would do a good job of making a record sleeve. But then again I come back to what my friend Hugh said. Of course everything Hockney does is great, but would his design for a Wave Pictures cover really be any better than a simple photo of The Wave Pictures?

 What advice would you give people who want to design record sleeves?

I suppose that I feel that people shouldn’t be afraid of putting themselves on their own record cover. After all, they are making the music and if you’re confident enough to do that why get all humble about putting a picture of yourself on the bloody thing?

Art + Music

This month we will be looking at the infinite, somewhat holy connection between art and music in all its different genres. Spanning an enormous amount of ways music and art come together, this feature will take a closer look at stage design, record sleeves, music videos, zines, rock star painters, band merchandise, music at fashion shows and much, much more. Now put your hands together for Art + Music.