Untold hero designer of the 70's/80's music world, was first blown away with his work on Hawkwind’s second album, that fold out sleeve was a glorious revelation, he had a unique vision that adapted to the changing world of music of those era's. But until the middle of the last decade the name Barney Bubbles wasn’t widely known or recognised aside from music business associates from back in the day or the odd rabid fan. The reason for this is not because his work was hidden away on obscure releases – he designed covers for several classic albums as well as a fair few hit singles in the 70’s and early 80’s. It wasn’t because the work wasn’t good, most of it is stunning, all the more so when you read into the detail he put in each and every one. It was more to do with the fact that Barney often didn’t sign much of his work, and when he did it was under some super-coded pseudonym only a few close to him would recognize. He also didn’t go out of his way to publicize himself and suffered from bouts of depression which, sadly, caused him to take his own life in 1983, thus halting what could have been a groundbreaking career in design.

I would say tBubbles was that rare thing in that he spanned two very distinct generations and worked seamlessly within both of them, a rarity these days and hard to pull off as most designers get associated with a particular style or genre and become known for that only. He started in the midst of the 60’s and became a full blown hippy, journeying to San Francisco in the summer of ’68 . He returned to produce graphics for the scene in London – the name Barney Bubbles was given to him after he started his own psychedelic light show mixing inks on overhead projectors. A long association with Hawkwind followed and he designed some of their most innovative sleeves such as ‘Space Ritual’ and ‘X In Search Of Space’ – both fold out wonders the likes of which were abundant in the 70’s.

But come the year of punk, when all this was to be washed away and the reset button pushed, Barney fell in with the newly hatched Stiff label with Ian Dury, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe among others and seamlessly altered his style(s) to fit with the times, coasting through into the 80’s unscathed. He was the first person to mimic the Penguin book covers now so ubiquitous, parodied Blue Note sleeve design nearly a decade before it came back into fashion with Acid Jazz and took De Stijl and Cubist designs as inspiration before many others. He even dipped his toe into furniture design and early video promo making before he passed (did you know he directed The Specials‘ ‘Ghost Town’ video? no, me neither).

Hawkwind In Search of Space interior album cover

Damned Music for Pleasure cover and inner sleeve