VAUGHAN OLIVER

Vaughan Oliver Biography

Header photo: Detail from poster for This Mortal Coil album, Filigree & Shadow & typography from the ultimate Vaughan Oliver design book, This Rimy River

© All images Vaughan Oliver & v23

Biography

How could anyone talk about graphic design of the last 20 years without mentioning something about Vaughan Oliver (born September 12, 1957 in Sedgefield, England)? Oliver's work focuses on sobriety and weirdness, but its weirdness has a uniqueness that is just plain beautiful. Without doubt, he is one of the most important graphic designers to come out of Britain in the last 40 years and his influence can be seen far and wide.

23 envelope & v23

With the photographer, Nigel Grierson, Oliver set up the design company, 23 envelope in the early 80s; rechristened v23 in 1988 after Grierson's departure. Within its own structure, he deeply influenced the sleeve design area during the 80s. Mostly working for the label 4AD, designing sleeves for Ultra Vivid Scene, Clan of Xymox, Frank Black, Pixies, Cocteau Twins, This Mortal Coil (see their Filigree & Shadow cover), Robert Fripp and many others.

Vaughan Oliver has even a wider palette than Brody or Emigre's people: he is not just a graphist; he is a real art director, either skilled for graphic design or typography than for photography. Working with talented photographers, he masters the whole process, from conceiving pictures to the final lay-out.

4ad posters @ ebay.co.uk (direct link to posters)

Lenin participates in the eBay (EPN) Associates Program. Using the eBay link helps fund scanning and archive work.

David Sylvian Collaboration

His & v23's work with the legendary ambient guru, David Sylvian is now mythical and the closest that pop and art have ever been. It is a collaboration that continued right up to the early 2000s and beyond (through Chris Bigg's work for the sublime 2015 book Hypergraphia).

See the Sylvian album covers such as:

• • Secrets of the Beehive and the accompanying poster
• • Approaching Silence
• • Books such as Trophies I & Trophies II

Oliver's design is an integral and obvious part of the experience...to such an extent that the work of both artists becomes one completely.

Visceral Pleasures

In his 2001 book, Visceral Pleasures, Oliver explores the different phases of his career. At their most expressive and inventive, his graphic images embody his intense responses as a listener, plunging the viewer into a world of visceral sensation and pleasure.

Later Career

Oliver and v23, which included Chris Bigg, had their offices in Wandsworth, South London.

v23 disbanded in 2008 with Oliver and Bigg going their separate ways. Bigg worked extensively with Sylvian's new label, SamadhiSound (2002-15) among others, as well as lecturing. Oliver turned to lecturing as well as occasionally keeping his hand in with graphic design.

From January 2015 he became the creative lead at the University of Greenwich as well as continuing as a visiting professor at UCA, Epsom. He was also an AGI member and resided in Epsom, Surrey.

Exhibition Review

Slightly off the Ground - 2007

18 January - 3 March 2007
Stanley Picker Gallery, Kingston University
Knights Park, Kingston upon Thames, KT1 2QJ, UK

The blurb reads:

'Slightly off the Ground presents (Vaughan Oliver's) personal selection of his iconic music posters from early works with 4AD to the present day, the exhibition providing a rare overview of the themes and influences that underpin the practice of this inspirational graphic alchemist. The specially devised gallery installation, evocative of the street setting where the posters would have been first encountered, is designed together with his long term collaborator Chris Bigg, and will be sound-tracked by the music that inspired the resulting designs.'

Review

With that in mind I headed off to the Stanley Picker Gallery in Kingston looking forward to this exhibition. And the charming little gallery by the Hogsmill River is as leafy picturesque as leafy picturesque can be for a place just a 10 minute walk from 'bloody hell, parking is sheer hell' city that is otherwise known as Kingston town centre.

But the Hogsmill River isn't the River Thames: it's technically a river I guess but makes a damned good impression of a puffed-up stream. And that is the problem in a nutshell. In my opinion a Vaughan Oliver exhibition should be at a gallery by the River Thames and not by the Hogsmill (Tate Britain methinks, after all Rachel Whiteread had Embankment exhibited at the Tate's gigantic Turbine Hall in 2005).

I know this misses the point of the exhibition. This is an intimate affair and these are a few posters from Oliver's personal collection but there just aren't enough of them, nor is the place big enough to possibly do justice to his career to date. For example I for one would loved to have seen some of the designs for the acclaimed David Sylvian Trophies II book for which v23 did the design. That book is breathtakingly, achingly, beautiful.

At the end of the day, Oliver is the most important graphic designer of the last 25 years. There are probably around 40 designs maximum on show here and that is not enough. I know it is free admission and I know what is there is beautifully presented but there is just not enough of it.

The exhibition catalogue is great though. So all in all, this could have been done much better. Really, it's just for the most fanatical of Vaughan Oliver/v23 fans.

Exhibition poster details

Related Works

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