It’s Pop It’s Art by Airside I’d been meaning to...

It’s Pop It’s Art by Airside

I’d been meaning to write about these prints for a while as they’ve inspired me since their creation in 2008. With this week’s sad announcement of design group Airside’s planned closure, now seems like a good time.

In partnership with music group EMI, Airside devised the It’s Pop It’s Art posters, based on their favourite song lyrics, to connection the “enigmatic emotion of music and the ordered intellect of the listener”. The prints include an embossed (white on white) ‘Imagine’ by John Lennon, Amy Winehouse’s ‘Rehab’ and Monty Python’s ‘Always look on the bright side of life’. The prints were made available online and exhibitions were organised in London and L.A.

I was fortunate enough to visit Airside’s offices in London earlier this year to meet co-founder Fred Deakin. Fred is also one half of the electronic music duo Lemon Jelly, which I’m a big fan of, and he’d promised to give a good home to some of my old vinyl records. Nat Hunter, another co-founder gave a passionate talk at Typo London in October, running through Airside’s recent work and her influence on the more sustainable creation of the new D&AD annual. It will be sad to see Airside go but as the founders each want to develop their personal projects, it feels like a brave and positive move to close the business voluntarily on a high.

airside.co.uk