For me, growing up in a house full of reggae records has made the Trojan logo as recognisable as the Nike swoosh, but with a ton of more meaning. It’s no coincidence that they also use a heavy robust and solid typeface like Rockwell Extra Bold.
Love vinyl T shirts
It’s the end of the sixth uchi album of T shirts. All but two of the designs on this as yet untitled album are music related. I am pleased that these last two designs follow the music theme, with a particular focus on vinyl.
There are a couple of new designs that were going to be included, but were not finished in time. On reflection it worked out fine. The two unfinished pieces are very illustrative and more like designs in the pipeline than the ones recently done. So, maybe the next album will be all illustration? We’ll see.
Here are the latest two uchi vinyl-related T shirts and the stories behind them…
Trojan and The Big Payback were influenced by our neighbours here in Bristol – Payback Records.
Founded in 1968, the British founded Trojan Records has one of the most iconic and recognisable logos and a host of equally iconic and renowned artists under its belt.
From reggae, ska, rock steady and dub, its endurance is a testament to the music and culture. We haven’t included the complete list of all the artists that appeared under Trojan Records, but hope we’ve caught a few of everybody’s favourites.
Although a reggae specialist Payback Records have a great selection of non-reggae vinyl. Their HipHop section is featured on The Big Payback T shirt. Coincidentally, the record store is named after the 1989 EPMD track of the same name; perfect uchi. I was unaware of this connection before I added the type. The Big Payback is one of my favourite EPMD tracks and is somewhere in the stack of old school vinyl in the image. In the shot, I’m actually standing in Payback Records.
Only thing left to do is name the album!
There are many styles of type and many classification systems – defined by their visual characteristics (stroke contrast, serif shape, etc) and their historical development or reference. Here, I’ve tried to match typefaces over the ages into their main classifications within the element groups on the Periodic Table. Also, except for the Lanthanoids and Actinoids (Glyphic, Script, Blackletter and Graphic faces) and, where possible, in each element group, the typefaces are in roughly in date order from the top to bottom. There are some notable exceptions for aesthetic reasons. For example, Helevtica was made in 1957, but it had to be Hydrogen!
