“Zang tumb tuuum!” shouted Mr Marinetti

There’s only one thing better than taking a new design brief from a client — taking that brief from people whose work you really admire. We’ve designed or repackaged albums for a number of artists on ZTT Records, including Kirsty MacColl, Lisa Stansfield, Frankie Goes to Hollywood, The Buggles and Trevor Horn, but this is one of our favourites.

In 1984, Art of Noise released an album Who’s Afraid of the Art of Noise? and a brace of singles — ‘Into Battle’, ‘Close to the Edit’ and ‘Moments in Love’ — that sent pop music up an experimental new path. Dance, and pop in general, owes a huge debt to the original five members of Art of Noise: Trevor Horn, Gary Langan, JJ Jeczalik, Anne Dudley and Paul Morley. The group, well known for keeping their faces firmly hidden from their single and album packaging, wrung music and rhythms from diverse sources — a VW Golf starter motor, a church organ and machine gunfire are in the mix.

The unreleased demos, alternative mixes, studio experiments and a 40-page booklet are all in this CD box set entitled And What Have You Done With My Body, God? crafted at Gibson. It’s a respectful nod to some of the original graphic style used by ZTT.

ZTT’s name, an acronym of ‘zang, tumb, tuuum!’ was an homage to the 1912 futurist poem by Filippo Marinetti.

CD box set album design for the Art of Noise