Michael Johnson

Michael Johnson likes the use of typography in the Form-designed cover for Scritti Politti album Tinseltown to the Boogiedown. ‘The type has been engraved on to a plectrum. It’s very clever,’ he says. The work was nominated for a British Design & Art Direction Award in the packaging design category. Form director/ designer Paul West was approached by Scritti Politti singer Green Gartside with an idea inspired through reading about the artist John Baldesari. Baldesari’s ‘designs of scale’ were interpreted by Form in the photography of small, everyday objects and seeing the object take on a different life when enlarged. ‘Adding to the scale idea was one of appropriation. Either the name Scritti Politti or the song title was manipulated on to each chosen object in a way that would give the song its own unique brand,’ says West.