Fehler

Irrtum n. Mistake, Error Mangel n. Fault, Defect

Sampler 3, Adrian Shaughnessy [Edit]

Album covers used to be radical as a matter of course. But the album covers you see today in the high street stores are rarely radical; they are safe, tidy, usually 'well-designed' and usually, well… bland. Radical album covers still exist, but to find them you have to step outside the consumerist domain of the mainstream record industry and comb the hidden networks of labels releasing new and experimental music.

And it's worth the effort, because here you'll find covers fizzing with the full range of radical contemporary graphic expression…

In N. Ireland, the energetic Fällt label, with graphics by Fehler, has produced an outstanding corpus of work. It combines graphic formalism with a thoroughly contemporary technological slant. The sleeves are a brilliant fusion of codes, ciphers and neo formal typographic stylings. They appear weightless and placeless. In fact they look like the creation of a genuine digital sensibilty.

For designers Fehler, the technological cyber-magic of the laptop makes it all possible:

"The laptop lends itself to this blurring of boundaries; it's a toll to run software and, because of the inherent flexibility of software, offers limitless possibilities. Obviously desktops have offered these same possibilities for some time, but I think what makes the laptop different is its sheer portability."

The sleeves of Angela Lorenz [and] Fehler represent one of the myriad future paths for cover art, and graphic design in general. Just as hot metal typesetting imparted an aesthetic flavour to graphic design from the pre-electronic era, so the widespread use of digital technology has culminated in the flowering of a genuine technological aesthetic for contemporary design.