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In 2016-7 I was the Art Director for PJ Harvey's The Hope Six Demolition Project. In collaboration with PJ Harvey, by drawing on her music, lyrics and poems, I produced a series of designs that were used across the albums, singles and merchandise and also art-directed a photoshoot for press (and for the poster accompanying the vinyl album), as well as giving feedback on press photos, videos and other visual aspects of the project.

The imagery I used directly referenced imagery in the songs and poems (two-headed dogs, goats, the orange monkey, money, birds, keys and begging bowls). But also, the aim was to make the project consistent with and part of the marching band aesthetic of the stage show: drawing on old collective visual traditions and symbolic systems including drum and tambourine painting, playing cards, and heraldry. I also drew on accidental and unconscious symbolism, using shadows and rorschach blots, for example.

Throughout, PJ Harvey and her record company were as keen as I was that the project was not about "branding" or giving a visual identity to the album project, but instead finding a visual equivalent, something that could be taken up and adopted by other people. From the start, the aim was that these were images that could be copied, adapted and reworked to carry new meanings, just as my previous cover, for Let England Shake, had been adopted for demonstrations and uprisings.

Each iteration of the design was different; the tambourine on the record cover was not the same as the one etched on the vinyl or on the T-shirt, the coat of arms was redrawn by hand for each drum, and stage backdrop versions were subtly different from the album cover version. My ambition was that the designs could be copied, redrawn as tattoos, or painted onto jackets. I am collecting examples of these reworkings, including tattooed versions, and would love to know of any more.

More information about the design process can be found in this interview in Creative Review .