Draft:Andy Vella

Andy Vella is a professional designer, artist and photographer. He is also employed as a Senior Lecturer at Arts University Bournemouth, and at Westminster University,. He previously taught for 8 years at Middlesex University, where he was recognised for his contributions to fostering great success in his design students in the D&AD and RSA awards,,

Andy Vella is most known for his iconic album covers created for The Cure. A recent article in the magazine artnet describes the trajectory and scale of his contribution in shaping the band's distinctive look - in spite of their desire not to be pigeon-holed or identified by a single or characteristic aesthetic as one that was partially shaped by Vella's collaborations with the band and long-standing creation of their cover artwork over a 40-year period: 'His handiwork can be glimpsed across the group's oeuvre—from the stark abstraction of Faith (1981), to the kaleidoscopic deeps of Disintegration (1989), to the saturated tints of the 1997 compilation, Galore.'

In addition to his well-known work for The Cure, he has also been acknowledged for his work with a range of other bands, as an interview with DJ Food discusses: 'some of those early releases are now considered classics of the genre and worth a lot of money',

Other bands that Vella is known to have worked with include Gene, Swervedriver, Eat, Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, Die Warzau, Heather Nova, Puressence and Tamsin Archer,

More famously, Vella went on to create album covers for 'Jeff Buckley, Pavement, Primal Scream and Mogwai, to direct design at Fiction Records and acid house label Desire and to design book covers for major publishers, including for titles by Tobias Wolff, Nadine Gordimer, Stieg Larsson and Margaret Atwood',

Vella's design was a huge influence on the look and visual identity of Fiction Records, for whom he created the logo and brand, but his design reach extended beyond Fiction to also incorporate work for many other record labels simultaneously, attracting the attention of punk maverick, Malcolm McLaren: 'At Fiction, I had a blast. I worked on three labels and a radio station: 'Desire', a dance label, Non Fiction, an indie label, and then Fiction. I was given pretty much complete freedom. I remember Malcolm Mclaren being impressed that I managed all three, especially Desire. It was a great platform for me to play in many different ways.'

Vella describes how he also created and shaped the identity of maverick radio station, XFM, which went on to define the more commercially successful radio station, 6Music, part of BBC Music: 'I also worked with XFM, a pioneering indie radio station. It allowed us to challenge corporate norms and present music authentically. I enjoyed designing in a unique way for its audience, though it did get me into trouble a few times. During this period, I also collaborated with Arthur Baker, Big Cat Records, Chemikal Underground Records, Congo Natty, Creation Records, EMI Records, Island Records,Parlophone Records, Polydor Records, Sony Classical, Warp Records, and many more.'

Vella is a renowned artist in his own right, having work exhibited and catalogued in The Museum of Modern Art, New York,

Vella published a book, Obscure: Observing The Cure, in 2014, which contains a notably rare endorsement and foreword from The Cure's frontman, Robert Smith, which caused some excitement in the music press and industry. The book provides rare glimpses and behind-the-scenes photographs of the band in its seminal years, as well as private moments and never seen before photos, ,

Vella also produced a book about the other seminal band of the 1980s, The Smiths, for Foruli, an independent publisher,

Most recently, Vella produced the visuals for an encylopaedia of The Cure, written by Simon Price, which generated a similar stir and was produced in a limited edition print-run, causing it to sell out immediately it was pressed by independent publisher White Rabbit Books, which produces unique music books for the industry enthusiast:

Vella describes how he seeks creative inspiration as an artist through inhabiting different design worlds and identities in order to work across such a broad range of genres that have enabled him to amass such a vast catalogue of work in his long career. He says, "Design is about donning different hats and you have to live and breathe it and really get into the skin. If you were writing a specific book, you would put yourself through the pain to understand what it's about, wouldn't you?"