To be given a design job one day for Omni Trio, the next day EZ Rollers, the next Technical Itch, I guess I’m just lucky!”


- Knowledge Magazine

I’ve been meaning to post this small interview I did of Gary Haslam a few months ago. Gary is currently Head of Design over at the “Massive” agency Syzygy. Gary has also worked for industry greats such as AKQA, Holler!, and Eject Limited, but also has a huge history in pioneering the design aesthetic for the king of all Dn’B labels: Moving Shadow.


Drum n’ Bass album art is what first introduced me to graphic design so I have real soft spot for it. That being said I wanted to ask Gary just a few simple questions about his time working with the label and it’s artists. Gary pretty much lead the way for all things design within the dn’b scene. Take a peek at his entire collection of designs, or a trip down memory lane. If you ever owned a Moving Shadow record, odd’s are Gary designed it.


Don’t miss this!
Gary Haslam - A history of Drum & Bass 1995 -2009




Enjoy!

9 Questions with Moving Shadows - Gary Haslam

1. How did you first get hooked up with Moving Shadow?


I studied design in college and met Sean O’Keeffe, the man behind 2 Bad Mice. I had no D&B knowledge up till then, he introduced me to the “Helicopter Tune” and 2 bad mice’s “Underworld” and that was it! He produced the design for Moving Shadow then and asked if I wanted to do a few sleeves as he was concentrating more on the music (Deep Blue). First sleve was for “Cloud Nine” and the first LP was the “Jungle Renegades compilation”.





2 Bad Mice’s 3rd release Sean-Okeefee

2. What’s the story behind the original Moving Shadow logo? Can you share who was a part of that and how it came about?


That was already in use when I started designing for them and I believe was drawn by Rob Playford, the Boss! I took on the logo 2 after a few years and modelled it for a 3D feel and updated it a few years back, when he became more iconic and sleek.

The original iconic Moving Shadow logo
was designed in 1990 by Rob Playford himself.

3. Was there a standard design process for each artist? Did some artists contribute more than others?


I used to be supplied the artist name and track name and would go from there. Some tracks had cool names that you’d work with such as the classic LP “Professor Tsungs Art Of Sciencefunktion” for example. Others designs I’d be allowed to be as creative as I wanted to, so the freedom was great for experimenting with styles,type and layouts etc. Dom & Roland, Adam F, Hoax, EZ-Rollers and Omni Trio all used to be heavily involved with ideas and concepts for their releases.

4. What artists did you enjoy working with the most?


Dom & Roland, Adam F, Hoax, EZ-Rollers, Omni Trio and Rob Playford. I also really enjoyed working with Sean O’Keeffe “the man behind 2 Bad Mice” on the Moving Shadow identity and releases for the “10.0 series” of 12″s as well as “The Rob & Goldie” gold discs, “99p series” posters and the tour designs.

5. What was your most challenging design and or artist to work with?


Killabite, for me was a nice challenge. There wasn’t a brief and I really wanted to do a completely typographic approach. Omni Trio’s “Even Angels Cast Shadows” was also a tough one as it had to be as good as the title. Initially I had a vision in my head and was just a case of executing the design in an illustrate manner and making it simply work.

“Killa Bites” was released in 2000

6. There’s a lot of photography used in your more recent work. How much of it is yours?


A mix of both photography, friends, photoshop generated/3d stuff (a lot for Charge Recordings, Rise Of the Machines and Transformers etc) and stock image libraries when needed.

7. The first dnb record I ever bought was the “Drumfunk Hooliganz 2″
single. The illustrations from that series were sick. Are those all your original illustrations?


Yep, drawn by my better half Louise. She has produced a few for me “Professor Tsungs Art Of Sciencefunktion” with the sleeve and inner bag illustrations of the “Guardians…”, Drumfunks 1 and 2 and the angel from Omni’s “Even Angels…”.





Professor Tsungs Art Of Sciencefunktion LP released in 1999





Drumfunk Hooliganz II- Single released in 2000





Omni Trio - Even Angels Cast Shadows released in 2001


Omni Trio - First Contact

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8. Out of the 500+ albums you designed which designs are you most proud of?


Hard to say as most of my work was done with a reason or purpose which was appropriate to each job. I’ve mentioned a few, but some of my favorite 12″’s were designed for Universal Project, Dom & Roland, Tech Itch, Dieselboy (with We Work for Them’s original artwork).

9. What was your final Moving Shadow design and how did your relationship with Moving Shadow end.


Final sleeve was “05.2″, but have worked on a few projects with Dom and the EZ-Rollers or their Intercom label. Still feels like Shadow. Haven’t designed much recently, the last projects were for DJ Marky on Innerground and Dom’s “Through he Looking Glass”, but still designing none the less, but different industries, more corporate, (automotive, fashion, mobile, sports, pharmaceutical) but theres always that style that is great to bring to other clients where you can such as car configurators and microsites, where the look and feel is a bit more edgy than say pure corporate design.