Jamie Reid

1. What it is — a Suburban Press sticker, screenprint on paper with an adhesive backing, winter 1973–74 (the miners' strike, the government's energy-saving campaign). V&A: counter-propaganda — instead of saving energy as the government asks, it calls to „switch on something" for the miners. The dimension in the record (58 × 76 cm) doesn't match a sticker — not to be trusted.
2. Composition — a square; in the centre a smiling lightbulb-face (halftone), around it a black starburst mark (an „explosion" of light); text in a ring around the whole figure, reading in a circle: SWITCH ON SOMETHING top right, FOR THE MINERS bottom left. The eye enters at the grin, then goes round in a circle — no beginning or end, like a badge.
3. Colour — black and white, one screenprint colour. The halftone face against a solid black mark: two tones from a single colour.
4. Typography — bold grotesque bent along the circle (Letraset-type; not confirmed). This is the ONLY work in the series with „proper" typesetting without a ransom-note typeface — in 1973 Reid was still using bought letters when the slogan needed to look like an official campaign it was subverting.
5. Message — an inverted government appeal: the sentence structure stays official, the verb is reversed. Three seconds: lightbulb + grin = something cheerful about electricity. Five metres: the sticker is small — it doesn't work at five metres, it works at half a metre on a lamp post, in a toilet, in a shop window.
6. Why exactly this way — the sticker is the only medium that carries its own distribution: you print a hundred copies, the public sticks them up. The circle is the form of a badge/stamp — it looks official, so it passes as part of the campaign it's attacking.
7. What would kill it — an angry expression on the lightbulb. The grin is why it works: the government pleads, the sticker laughs.

Principles: slogan-u-novom-kontekstu artefakt-nosi-distribuciju jeftina-tehnika-kao-jezik To verify against the image: the actual dimensions of the sticker; whether the text is Letraset or cut.

1. What it is — a small banner 16 × 48 cm, screenprint, black and white; V&A: Reid's second logotype design, first used on a flyer for a concert at the 100 Club on 31.8.1976.
2. Composition — a black rectangle, inside white cut-out letters; the letters aren't on a baseline but each is slightly shifted and rotated, S-e-X: capital-lowercase-capital, P-i-S-T-O-L-S: lowercase and shifted in the middle. The rectangle isn't quite rectangular — the edges are cut by hand, top and bottom aren't parallel.
3. Colour — inversion: white letter on black. On a wall or a sleeve it reads as a hole in the paper, not as a sign.
4. Typography — every letter is a different object: different typefaces, sizes, angles. That's the whole identity decision: the logotype isn't a typeface but a PROCEDURE, so it can be re-cut every time and stays recognisable.
5. Message — ransom note: someone has taken a name and is holding it hostage. Three seconds: yes. Five metres: yes — a black block with white marks of letterform rhythm is recognisable even unread.
6. Why exactly this way — no money for typesetting; but even if there had been, typesetting would give a band that looks like every other one. Cut letters carry a threat before they're even read.
7. What would kill it — aligning the letters to a baseline. The moment the letters sit on a line it's a font, and a font can be bought.

Principles: nadjeno-slovo-nosi-porijeklo serija-kao-identitet To verify against the image: whether the letters are from newspapers or hand-cut from white paper — on this reproduction they look cut from solid white, not from newspaper headlines.

1. What it is — promotional poster for EMI, November 1976; V&A screenprint 71 × 98 cm, MoMA same motif as lithograph 43.2 × 61.6 cm (two editions, two techniques — not to be mixed up).
2. Composition — photograph of a TORN flag, ripped into five or six pieces, rejoined with safety pins; in the centre two white labels with the title, held by metal office paper clips; the band's name on a black label below. The flag occupies ~75% of the white sheet, slightly rotated. At the bottom, tiny: FIRST SINGLE · EMI 2566. The eye: the flag's diagonals lead to the centre, where the labels are — Reid uses the Union Jack's composition (all lines going to the middle) as a ready-made focus system.
3. Colour — red and blue of the flag, plus GREY tones of the photograph (folds, shadows of the pins). The flag isn't drawn but photographed — that's why it has material, dirt, and shadow. The white sheet around it is the fourth "colour" and holds the dirty object like an exhibit.
4. Typography — the title in ransom-note lettering on white labels; the labels are physically glued and fastened with paper clips — the typography IS an OBJECT that's held, not a layer. Catalogue data in typewriter (class).
5. Message — the state torn and patched with safety pins (which at that exact moment are also a punk fashion sign). Three seconds: flag + torn = yes. Five metres: the flag is recognisable, the labels aren't — but they don't need to be.
6. Why exactly this way — one operation: tear it, then document the repair. It's not a drawing of a torn flag but a photograph of a real act — evidence, not illustration.
7. What would kill it — a vector flag with a "tear effect". The whole point of the work is that someone actually did this by hand.

Principles: fotografija-je-layout jedna-operacija-po-radu detournement-zvanicne-slike To verify against the image: who photographed the flag (not in the record); whether the MoMA lithograph is the same proportions or cropped.

1. What it is — poster and single sleeve, Virgin, 27.5.1977 — one week before the Silver Jubilee. Offset (V&A), MoMA lithograph 69.9 × 100.3 cm, sleeve 17.5 × 17.5 cm (NPG). Original photograph: Peter Grugeon, official jubilee portrait (NPG and RCT, RCIN 2148924). v1, AnOther, Eye and Clash all say "Cecil Beaton" — wrong. RCT: Reid mirrored the photograph ("flipped"). Printworkers refused to run the print; the BBC banned the song; Woolworths and W.H. Smith refused to sell it; #2 on the chart (NPG).
2. Composition — the whole format is a Union Jack with painted/brushed edges to the stripes (the flag as if hand-painted, not geometric); in the centre an OVAL — the form of a cameo, a postage stamp, a coin — with a high-contrast portrait; across the eyes a black strip reading GOD save THE QUEEN, across the mouth a strip reading SeX PiSTOLS. The flag's diagonals again lead to the middle; the oval is the only rounded shape so the eye finds it at once.
3. Colour — red, blue, black, white paper. The portrait is pure black-and-white (no halftones in the midtones — lith contrast), so it stands in front of the flag as if cut out. All the colour is on the state; the queen has no colour — a document, not a picture.
4. Typography — ransom-note lettering on two strips. The anthem title over the eyes, the band's name over the mouth: the anthem shuts her eyes, the band shuts her mouth. The letterform cut differs, the strip is a physical piece of paper with an edge.
5. Message — text exactly where the gaze and speech are. Three seconds: you recognise the queen and see she's been "censored". Five metres: oval + flag — it reads without a single word. That's why it was banned: it works even for the illiterate.
6. Why exactly this way — two found sources (official portrait + newspaper lettering), one operation (cover). Nothing is drawn. The state supplied the image, the tabloid supplied the lettering, the scissors supplied the politics. The oval isn't decoration but a form the state uses for itself (stamp, coin) — Reid takes even the packaging.
7. What would kill it — a strip across the forehead instead of the eyes. Or move it 1 cm up: then it's "a title above the portrait", not a bind across the eyes.

Principles: tekst-na-mjestu-pogleda detournement-zvanicne-slike jedna-operacija-po-radu slogan-u-novom-kontekstu To verify against the image: the version with a safety pin through the lips and swastikas in the eyes (AnOther, Eye — other variants of the same operation) — which was published where; V&A dimensions (60 × 38 upright?) versus the landscape image.

1. What it is — original paste-up for the promotional poster Virgin VS184, July 1977: artboard with a yellow cover, tracing paper, underneath a collage — photocopy, pencil, glue; 13 cm wide. The bus image is not Reid's: David Jacobs (Point-Blank!, San Francisco) 1973 — a news photograph of a GMC bus, negative mirrored, Letraset lettering NOWHERE / BOREDOM / ALIENATION; one bus has its GMC logo upside down because of the mirroring (Flashbak). Reid's gallery claims Reid made it in 1972 and gave it to Point-Blank; Jacobs denies this. Here it is listed as a found image.
2. Composition — the design is small in the middle of a large empty artboard, with pencil lines drawn in for the cut. Two buses facing each other (mirrored), between them a column of text: SeX PiSTOLS above, NEW SINGLE ON VIRGIN RECORDS VS184 in the middle, pretty vacant below as white on a black strip. Symmetry around the vertical axis — two identical buses going to two "nowheres".
3. Colour — black-and-white on greyish card. Colour comes only in the application (badge: green background, blue text — V&A).
4. Typography — the band's name and the title in ransom-note lettering; catalogue line in typewriter. Three registers: cut / typed / Letraset on the bus destination boards (someone else's).
5. Message — two buses, two destinations, both nowhere. Three seconds: buses + word. Five metres: yes, once enlarged by process camera onto the poster; not in the original — the original is palm-sized.
6. Why exactly this way — this sheet shows Reid's WHOLE production system: a postcard-sized collage, a process camera enlarging it 5–8×, every cut edge and every grain of the copy grows with it. That's why the posters have "rough" lettering — it's not rough, just enlarged.
7. What would kill it — working at full size. The enlargement is the style.

Principles: postupak-citljiv-kao-poziv serija-kao-identitet To verify against the image: Point-Blank! pamphlet Space Travel 1973 — verify the copy (not found online); the rejected Virgin poster with buses in Up They Rise 1987.

1. What it is — promotional poster, Virgin VS191, October 1977; lithograph 82 × 108 cm. V&A: photograph of an overcrowded beach taken from a situationist publication. MoMA dates its lithograph 1976 — the single is from 1977; trust V&A.
2. Composition — black frame; inside a photograph of a beach with a TORN upper edge (white showing through the tear); the crowd fills everything, no horizon, no sky — just the pattern of people, deckchairs and umbrellas. The title top left in yellow, the band's name bottom right in yellow — a reading diagonal across the whole crowd. In the crowd tiny white speech bubbles with lyrics. Bottom left a small slogan KEEP WARM THIS WINTER — MAKE TROUBLE (an old Suburban Press sticker, recycled).
3. Colour — two colours: black (the photograph in lith contrast + the frame) and yellow (the text). Yellow appears in only four places; the photograph has none — so yellow works as a marker over the black-and-white document.
4. Typography — ransom-note lettering in yellow for the two large headings; lyrics in the speech bubbles in small grotesque (class); the slogan in two registers. The speech bubbles turn a documentary photograph into a comic strip — the crowd "speaks" the song's lyrics.
5. Message — the holiday as a mass prison; the song title as a tourist ad. From five metres: black block, yellow title, the crowd's texture — reads like a beach ad. From half a metre: the bubbles and the slogan say the opposite. Two audiences, two messages.
6. Why exactly this way — a situationist image (the spectacle of the holiday) taken literally and merely SIGNED; Reid adds text, doesn't change the image. The torn edge at the top is the only physical gesture — it shows that the image is a piece of paper, not a window.
7. What would kill it — a clean cut instead of the torn edge, or a third colour. Or if the lyrics were bigger: then the difference between the two reading distances disappears.

Principles: dva-rastojanja-citanja slogan-u-novom-kontekstu fotografija-je-layout To verify against the image: which situationist publication (V&A doesn't name it); the single sleeve is a different work (a Belgian tourist brochure turned into a comic strip — AnOther doesn't describe it, v1 doesn't have it) — not to be confused with this poster.

1. What it is — LP sleeve, Virgin, 28.10.1977. Original artwork (V&A, with John Varnom): paper collage on card, 58 × 76 cm, black type on white — colour was added only at print stage. V&A: "fluorescent colours and title were chosen to be noticed and to offend." UK: yellow + pink; North America: green + purple (PGDA/Louder). Obscenity trial in Nottingham — acquitted, "bollocks" as an Old English church term (V&A).
2. Composition — square, yellow plane; at top two lines NEVER MIND / THE BOLLOCKS centred, below in small type HERE'S THE, then a pink BANNER at an angle (~10°) running off both edges carrying the cut-out SeX PiSTOLS. Thirds: top third type, middle empty, bottom banner. No image. The angled banner is the only "event" — everything else is horizontal, so the banner looks like a sticker stuck over a finished sleeve.
3. Colour — two fluorescent colours that clash + black. Yellow and pink are the same lightness so they vibrate at the edge — the edge of the banner can't be looked at calmly. The colours were the CHEAPEST loud colours (fluo two-colour offset), but here chosen to hurt.
4. Typography — title: bold NARROW SERIF, typeset (the first purchased typeface for a large word); HERE'S THE: narrow grotesque (sans serif); SeX PiSTOLS: cut-out letters. Three registers deliberately combined with no hierarchy of typefaces/cuts — the type looks like a cheap newspaper ad, the banner like vandalism over it. Specific typeface not confirmed (Fonts In Use has no record) — do not name it.
5. Message — a curse word in the title, layout like a clearance-sale ad. Three seconds: yes. Five metres: yellow square with pink diagonal — recognisable as a sign even without the words.
6. Why exactly this way — McLaren (Louder Sound): "The only real thing about Never Mind The Bollocks was that it had to look ugly. We came up with the ugliest cover we could think of; that in a sense would attack the idea of super-graphics. I wanted to make ugliness beautiful." PGDA attributes that quote to Reid — incorrectly. Reid (Louder): the sleeve was meant to "articulate ideas… anti-establishment and quite theoretical" — while at the same time dismissing it as "cheap hype".
7. What would kill it — a single photo of the band. Or a straight banner. Or a "nice" typeface. The ugliness is deliberate and must be total — half-ugly looks like a mistake.

Principles: namjerna-ruznoca-kao-napad serija-kao-identitet nadjeno-slovo-nosi-porijeklo To verify against the image: which typeface the title uses (do not guess); whether the back had the same system; Varnom's share of the work.

1. What it is — process-camera print (Better Badges) for an offset plate, 40.5 × 50.8 cm; V&A lists it both as artwork for the inner sleeve of The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1979) and as an advert "Never Mind the Sex Pistols Here's the Sex Pistols — You made it Britain's number one album choice!" Date 1977 in the record; album 1979.
2. Composition — the same TEMPLATE as 07: title in two lines at top, HERE'S THE, then the angled banner with cut-out SeX PiSTOLS; below, in typewriter type, the ad line; at the bottom a small mark. Vertical format, text in the upper two-thirds, bottom empty.
3. Colour — black and white (plate print); colour would come at print stage.
4. Typography — same narrow serif + grotesque (sans serif) + cut-out letters. Difference from 07: the text has been swapped — "the bollocks" → "the Sex Pistols". The system is so solid it can parody itself a year or two later.
5. Message — the band, in its own advert, mocking its own album and audience ("YOU made it No. 1"). Three seconds: the sleeve is recognised. Five metres: the same.
6. Why exactly this way — when the identity is a TEMPLATE (layout + three typeface registers), a new message costs one hour of work. This is proof that 07 was a system, not a single sleeve.
7. What would kill it — changing the layout. The whole joke is that everything is the same.

Principles: serija-kao-identitet postupak-citljiv-kao-poziv To verify against the image: exactly where it was published (inner sleeve or press ad) — V&A gives both.