Superb graphic design for Factory Records-inspired tape and vinyl label

We regularly harp on about the union of great music and great design, but when projects like Geographic North come into our vision so regularly, who can blame us. The label is about graphic design as much as it is about music, founded by design graduate Farbod Kokabi and radio music director Farzad Moghaddam back in 2008. They were later joined by pals Bobby Power and Lee Summers, who formed the formidable team that now releases records with beautifully abstract, clean and bright sleeves and covers.

“Aesthetically, we were influenced by labels who found cohesion and continuity in their art, specifically the Touch imprint, which often featured Jon Wozencroft’s austere landscape/nature photography and restrained typography,” Farbod tells us. “Peter Saville’s special edition cassettes for Factory were also rather inspiring in how they were meant to work as a set, rather than individual entities, making the umbrella they were represented under as important as the artists themselves.”

The Factory influence is plain, but it’s wonderful to see a new label bring those references so neatly into the present, rather than relying on a yellow and black pastiche. “These influences led us to design with a bigger picture in mind, and to create our own idiosyncratic postmodernist world,” Farbod continues.

“We’re firm believers that no one image can capture the truth, so it’s rather fun countering the literalism of what an album should look like if it sounds a specific way. The totality of the experience is where we thrive. This is the first time you’re hearing the piece of music; the first time you’re seeing the artwork that covers it; having that kind of power to create a narrative— regardless of how accurate it is to representing the audio within—is fun!”