The Human League – “Being Boiled” single cover
Source: twitter.com License: All Rights Reserved.
Artwork for “Being Boiled” (with “Circus of Death” on the B-side). The 7″ single was the debut release by The Human League. It came out in June 1978 on Fast Product.
The typefaces used in this design were typical of the time. Also noteworthy are the graphics, which came from Letraset Illustration sheets.
Source: twitter.com License: All Rights Reserved.
License: All Rights Reserved.
2 Comments on “The Human League – “Being Boiled” single cover”
Thanks a bunch, Tommy! That’s a nice one.
You already identified the source of the dancing couple as Letraset’s Illustration sheet AA115. I was curious to see whether I can find the others in my 1981 Letraset catalog.
The pyramids on the back stem from AA134, just like the NYC skyline on the front. The corner building can be found on AA122, with the people added from AS1014 (Letraset Architectural Symbols). Lastly, all the musical notation is taken from S1327 (Letraset Symbols).
This sleeve briefly appears in ARTE’s Gymnastique / Flick Flack episode about “Letraset: The Punk Designer’s Best Friend”, at 0:22 mins. The clip illustrates the importance of dry transfer lettering for the DIY approach in the punk era, and also features Malcolm Garrett’s work for Buzzcocks and Daniel Miller’s use of Letraset sheets for the visual identity of Mute Records. The video is available in French (with English subtitles) and German.
Hi Florian. Thanks for the info! I thought I’d remembered seeing the music notation parts in Letraset somewhere previously, but I couldn’t find the exact information.
Definitely going to check out that video now too, hadn’t heard of that before. Thanks again.