//Back Cover, Jesus Of Cool, Nick Lowe, Radar Records, 1978. Photo: Bob Bromide. Design © Barney Bubbles Estate//

//Back cover, Darling Let’s Have Another Baby/Something Else/It Really Digs, Johnny Moped, Chiswick Records, 1978. Design © Barney Bubbles Estate//

//Clock, Stiff Records, 1978. Design © Barney Bubbles Estate//

//Front, Life’s A Riot With Spy Vs Spy, Billy Bragg, Utility, 1983. Design © Barney Bubbles Estate//

“In graphics, in the music business at least, Barney pioneered the use of everyday objects in his work. He could see the design and the beauty in the apparently banal”
Suzanne Spiro, artist

The Barney Bubbles exhibition Optics & Semantics at London gallery Rob Tufnell closes tomorrow evening; if you have a chance, do go along and enjoy the late graphic arts maestro’s unique celebrations of the mundane and workaday.

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Tags: (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass, Billy Bragg, Brian Griffin, Charisma Records, Chiswick Records, Clarice Cliff, El Lissitzky, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, F-Beat Records, Get Happy!!, Is That Love, Jake Riviera, John Arlott Talks Cricket, Johnny Moped, Life's A Riot With Spy Vs Spy, Moholy-Nagy, Nick Lowe, Paul Carrack, Radar Records, Rob Tufnell, Squeeze, Stiff Records, Strongbow, Suburban Voodoo, Suzanne Spiro, Teenburger, Terence Conran, They Called It Rock, Utility

//A doozy: This point-of-sale design by Barney Bubbles for Elvis Costello & The Attractions’ 1980 LP Get Happy!! is among rare rock posters on show at Mod Lang in Ludlow. Photo: Paul Bradshaw//

The regions are where it’s at these days, so we are told, and naturally Barney Bubbles designs can be found in the thick of it.

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Tags: Chalkie Davies, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Get Happy!!, Ludlow Fringe Art Trail, Mod Lang, Paul Bradshaw, Rockpile, Seconds Of Pleasure

//Lynam – just about visible on the right – talks through the extraordinary sleeve design and packaging for Armed Forces, the 1979 album by Elvis Costello & The Attractions//

A film of last month’s celebration of design hero Barney Bubbles by American graphic designer Ian Lynam is now available to view online.

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Tags: Armed Forces, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Hawkwind, Ian Lynam, Let It Rock, Nick Lowe, The AC/DC Desk, Vermont College Of Fine Arts

//Left: Poster, 30 x 20″, one of a series of four, for Generation X residency at The Marque, Soho, London, September 1977. Right: Poster, 60 x 40″, one of a series of five for Stiff Records package tour of UK, October/November, 1977. Design (c) Barney Bubbles Estate//

//Installation view of Making Music Modern dominated by Bubbles’ Costello poster. Also note his Do It Yourself sleeve and Generation X poster. Photo: John Wronn//

New York’s Museum Of Modern Art is featuring seven works by the late graphics maestro Barney Bubbles in the current exhibition Making Music Modern: Design For The Eye & Ear.

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Tags: Almost Blue, Billy Bragg, Colin Fulcher, Elvis Costello, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Generation X, High FIdelity, Ian Dury, Ian Dury & The Blockheads, Johnny Moped, Making Music Modern: Design For The Eye & Ear, MoMA, Museum Of Modern Art, Philip Johnson's Architecture & Design Galleries, The Marquee

//Olympia Le-Tan handbag based on artwork for The Damned's 1977 LP Music For Pleasure, with promotional t-shirt for Fred Burns' documentary Johnny Moped Basically using 1978 lightbulb design//

So potent is the creative legacy of the graphic design master Barney Bubbles – who died on this day 30 years ago – that he is continually cited as an inspiration by contemporary visual communicators, while his name and work is attached to all manner of endeavours.

Recently, Bubbles artworks were chosen by the French fashionista Olympia Le-Tan to lead her exclusive collection of handbags. Meantime Tokyo lifestyle label retaW has named a range of fragrance products “Barney*” in celebration of “the many album covers he was responsible for in the 70s and 80s”.

//Barney* products named after Bubbles by Japanese lifestyle company retaW//

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Tags: (I Love The Sound Of) Breaking Glass, Basically Johnny Moped, Blockhead logo, Brian Griffin, Chalkie Davies, Elvis Costello & The Attractions, Fred Burns, Ian Dury, Imperial Bedroom, Music For Pleasure, New Kids On The Block, Nick Lowe, Olympia-Le-Tan, retaW, Royal Photographic Society, Spasticus Autisticus, The Damned, The Photographers' Gallery