I heard you making patterns rhyme like some new romantic looking for the TV sound
We were seven years old when 1980 arrived. The currency of music in the playground was without doubt the compact cassette tape and the beloved 80s mix-tape. We spent hours sitting next to the radio trying to time the perfect recording of 1999 and hustling friends for their uninterrupted version of Take on Me or Mirror Man. We did have vinyl records too (mostly seven inch singles) and we purchased collectively to avoid overlap, with limited funds we would do anything to expand the music available. High fidelity technology (DON’T LAUGH) was pretty new to our generation and to an extent we have been culturally defined though the cassette and Sony Walkman (we had lesser brands). By the time the ominous year 1984 came along we were riding around on a BMX (probably a Raleigh Burner) in small tight–knit friendship gangs with portable cassette tape players listening to I Feel For You and Sweet Dreams recorded from the Top 40. It’s no surprise the first Now Music compilation was released in 1983, it tapped into the strange beauty of the mix-tape, how the songs can all mean something or link together in just the way you remember. The songs and artists for our 1980s house party are chosen for their familiarity, from or around the time of release and our seemingly never ending love of each (misguided or not).
IN PICTURES – 80s Mix-Tape Hits
THANK YOU FOR SCROLLING BY
ABOUT STUDIO GRRR
Hiya, we are Glen & Rebecca mischievously-led married couple with a shared love of books, drawing, colour, pattern and stories.
We make Art, Design Book Covers and Tell Stories.
For thirty years we have been Artists, Designers, Educators, Public Speakers, Creative Nomads and Heritage Crafts People.
Nice to meet you.
We believe creativity has an important role in our society and stories in the form of art, design and writing provide a vital gateway to our continued education and open doors to the imagination of others. At their best stories can challenge the way we view world and creativity gives these crucial ideas form and permanence. For thirty years we have found and lost, read, watched and listened to many fairy tales, folk-stories, discovered ancient symbols and thought about the reality of things (we believe stories are the orienting structures of our lives and language shapes reality).
Our artists books, paintings, journals, street art, pamphlets and zines have been exhibited at Institute of Contemporary Arts (London), Leeds City Art Gallery, Hotel Maria Kapel (NL), The Enschede Academy of Visual Arts (NL), East Gallery (Norwich), Ruskin Gallery (Cambridge), Permanent Gallery (Brighton) Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana (Mexico), Manchester Craft and Design Centre, K Gallery (California) SHOWROOM (Austria), Bureau Gallery (Manchester), PrintROOM’s AmsterdamZineJam and The Anti Design Festival (London)
DESIGN & COMMERCIAL WORK
We currently focus on book cover design and editorial based projects for independent and commercial publishers, research departments, universities, cultural organisations, academics and artisan makers. We have recently completed projects funded by The National Centre for Writing, University of East Anglia, Norwich University of the Arts, The Lithuanian Culture Institute, Ministry of Culture Taiwan, Pro Helvetia, LTI Korea and The Nippon Foundation.
CREATIVE LEADERSHIP IN ARTS EDUCATION
Glen has been working in the Creative Industry for over thirty years and has been a Leading Design Educator for over twenty years. He has been an Educator to some of the most influential Graphic Designers and Notorious Creative Leaders around today and has taught students from all over the world. He has developed a deep understanding for mentoring designers which empowers and celebrates individuality and fosters a critical approach to creativity through curiosity, play and discovery. He is course leader for a unique rabble-rousing bunch of story-tellers on the BA (Hons) Design for Publishing and BA (Hons) Graphic Design Programmes at Norwich University of the Arts.
WORDS ART PHOTOGRAPHY By Glen & Rebecca (aka Studio GRRR)
Words are reproduced without permission and published as a matter of public interest.
No Barcode No ISBN
BLOG AND STORIES
Our Blog is a curated collection of articles, stories, reprints, photographic essays, conversations and inspriation written for the curious minds of analogue people living in a digital world. Through our life’s journey we stumble through layered narratives found in naturally occurring intersections between the metaphysical realm, and terrestrial landscape, collecting spell fragments from a cast of unlikely collaborators.
Angels, demons, gods, ancestors, aliens tell of a bizarre world brimming with legacy broadcast media, music, philosophy, literature, fictional characters, and the simple truth of everyday life and death.
From this confused debris we conjure and construe interconnecting polychromic stories (we think stories and light are the orienting structures of our lives) about art, creative practice, communication theory, how language shapes our reality, mental and physical health, comedy, music, the politics of bullshit and lashings of esoteric flim-flam.
