That's Cool But Can You Make It More Shit - DFA Records Exhibition

Michael Vadino, in-house designer for DFA records and the man behind LCD Soundsystem's artwork, explains the creative process to Andrew P Street ahead of the opening of That's Cool But Can You Make It More Shit?  

What made you decide to try and collate all the DFA stuff all into the one place?
Honestly, to tell the truth, I was prompted by EMI – they thought that it would be a fun idea and I got on board immediately because I thought that it would be cool to see everything together. It wasn't until recently when I started looking at everything that I've done, the LCD [Soundsystem material] over the years, that I kind of started to really see the thread that ties it all together, so it was nice. The timing was really good. It was sort of in my mind to try to see all of it.

Had you archived all that stuff before?
I try - ever since the first LCD album came out, the self-titled album - I've personally tried to archive as much of the work that I've done for them as I can. It's tough sometimes because I'll design there and sometimes I'll design offsite and I can't always keep track of everything but I've been trying to archive most of the stuff myself - anything that I do, even if it's just a hand-drawn sketch of an idea, I'll try to keep it. And James [Murphy, DFA records founder and LCD Soundsystem creative force] is in the same way, his mild OCD that we share has archived as much stuff that has come out of there. So between the two of us, and even John Falcon, he's an art lover so he keeps this much too, so between the three of us, although not terribly organised, there's a lot of stuff. Maybe I'm just able to tolerate James better. You know I say that with a lot of love - I love that guy, we're really good friends. Maybe it's nepotism. I'm basically just a computer and James moves my mouse around.

It's really quite rare, leaving aside people like Vaughan Oliver for 4AD, unusual for one artist to be able to work with a label long term.
There's no secret that Factory [Records, legendary Manchester label and home of New Order] is an influence on DFA's philosophy. Am I telling tales out of school by saying that? I don't think so. They're coming from kind of the same place. There's a lot of respect for that label so I think that helped James single in on one person. It's not to say I've done everything for the one label, there are definitely other designers that have done amazing work for them. I think the other thing that helps is that I've worked with James for a really long time so it's sort of a complicated idea - it doesn't sound complicated but everything has to look kind of shitty but it has to look intentional too, it can never look too designed but it has to be sort of designed.

I remember in the 80s when the CD came in and there was a lot of talk about how the art of the album cover was going to be lost forever - and of course if people have album covers at all it's tiny little thumbnails on their iTunes. Has that affected...?
[interrupts] No, never. We never approach artwork from an iTunes standpoint or even a CD standpoint; it always comes from a tall bench. Always. Or if it's a single, it's a 7-inch and that is just really more self-serving than anything. James wants to make music for people like him that understand it - for music lovers. He loves vinyl and all that stuff so that has to be the philosophy behind everything; it has to be the driving force. It's kind of a more old school mentality I guess.