4AD Pays Homage To Vaughan Oliver

The Internet is alight with tributes to the dearly departed graphic design icon whose imagery defined an era

December 30, 2019December 31, 2019 Ron Hart 0 Comments 4AD, His Name Is Alive, Ivo Watts-Russell, Kristin Hersh, Pale Saints, Pixies, RIP, The Breeders, The Mountain Goats, This Mortal Coil, Throwing Muses, Ultra Vivid Scene, Vaughan Oliver, Warren Defever

Tributes from all across social media came pouring in over these last 36 hours after news spread of the passing of legendary album artist Vaughan Oliver, whose groundbreaking work in collage and typography defined the sound of the groundbreaking British pop label 4AD Records.

“Vaughan Oliver taught me to appreciate quality,” wrote 4AD label owner Ivo Watts-Russell on the company website. “He taught me how to look at the physical world. He was a force of nature and I’m having such a hard time processing this. I have no idea how to define in a few words the enormous impact he had on my life. Two Virgos with a tendency toward being controlling we somehow managed to compliment and bolster each other in our mission to transcend mediocrity. The breadth and scale of work is incomparable, continuously fanned by the inspiration a new collaboration would bring. I’m aware that we each considered the other a bit of an enigma, a contradiction to our own personalities, and I also know that our mutual respect for each other remained intact.”

Meanwhile, many 4AD alumni took to Twitter to express their remorse and condolences over the death of their beloved colleague and friend.

The news of Oliver’s death was first broke by fellow graphic designer Adrian Shaughnessy, who helped put together the indispensable Vaughan Oliver: Archive, stating the artist “died peacefully today, with his partner Lee by his side.”

No cause of death was provided.

“We are incredibly sad to learn of the passing of Vaughan Oliver; there was no-one else like him,” 4AD said in a statement. “Without Vaughan, 4AD would not be 4AD and it’s no understatement to say that his style also helped to shape graphic design in the late-20th century.”

The Vaughan Oliver Multiverse/Collage by Ron Hart

For those of us who grew up in the 80s and 90s, the vibrant, haunting images he provided first as 23 Envelope and later as v23, defined the aesthetic of 4AD as much as the music in a audio-visual symmetry not seen since Blue Note during the Reid Miles era. It’s a deep, multi-tentacled duality of sound + vision that left an impression on an entire generation of music and design fans alike.

“It is rare to think of someone in one’s life and know that with absolute certainty that the course of both our lives were irrevocably changed for the better as a result,” Watts-Russell concluded his eulogy. “The results, the fruit, is available for all to see.. in pictures at least.”