Designer: Luke Drozd

Client: Bestival / New Order

Size: 420 x 594 cm

Printing Process: Screenprint

Number of Inks: Three

When faced with the prospect of putting your work against one of the industry's icons, there are multiple options available: "When I was asked to design a poster for New Order, the first thing I became aware of was that I was basically being asked to create a print for a band that generally works with one of the world's most respected designers in Peter Saville," explains Luke Drozd. "I am not one of the world's most respected anythings," he adds, "so this sent me into a spiral of self-doubt, rage, and bitterness at my lack of world-class athletic prowess that would have allowed me to side-step a career in the arts entirely." Once he caught his breath, a feeling of "acceptance and overall numbness" settled in. "I then realized that I still had to desgn the poster," he laughs.

Deciding to pay tribute to Saville's past work with the band, Drozd wanted to add "a more hand-crafted and less stark tone" to the piece than the look he was pulling from. Revisiting the famous sleeve of Power, Corruption and Lies, with it's crop of the painting "A Basket of Roses" by Henri Fantin-Latour, along with Saville's ingenious color system to decode the title, Drozd completely reinvented one of the mst famous sleeves of all-time and suceeded in making it his own.

"I have visited the actual painting at The National Gallery, and it is truly amazing," Drozd explains. "I like to look at the paintings there at a ridiculously close range and let them fill up my field of vision, where they start to break down to the base elements." He decided to adopt this approach for the poster, "zooming in on the roses and filling the frame, giving a mildly smothering effect, possibly even making it a little hard to take in." He lingers on the image before admitting, "I'm actually not sure that it does that, but rarely are our intentions truly realized." Shaking his head, he adds with a grin, "at least not when you are not one of the world's most respected anythings..."

Forcing a fresh re-examination of an iconic image, and allowing for visual enjoyment on several levels, it is obvious Drozd is a lot closer to earning that universal respect than he lets on.

You can always get John Foster's thoughts on posters in book form via New Masters of Poster Design, New Masters of Poster Design: Volume Two, 1,000 Indie Posters and many more.

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