Jamie Reid and the Sex Pistols for, “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here's The Sex Pistols”
By the time the Sex Pistols released their debut album “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols” in 1977, they had already gained a large cult following due to their anarchist alignment and a strong dislike towards the British Monarchy system. The group was never shy from controversy and often incorporated their views into their music. By being associated with such topics, it only made sense that the artwork used along with their music would be equally as arguable. To meet these goals, they worked with Jamie Reid, an artist who led the cut-and-paste DIY style into punk and beyond.
The Sex Pistols hired Jamie Reid, an artist who had graduated from Croyden College to begin working on the band’s artwork. Characterized by his unconventional style, Reid never paid much attention to trending art/design styles but instead paved his own path. His first big piece working with the Sex Pistols would be the artwork for the release of their track titled, “God Save The Queen,” which featured an image of Queen Elizabeth II with her eyes and mouth cut out, and replaced with a collage-style layout of the song’s name in their place.
Maybe the most controversial album artwork of its time, “Never Mind The Bollocks, Here’s The Sex Pistols,” featured some of the same DIY aesthetics from “God Save The Queen,” but focused more on the type, type layout & color rather than imagery. The cover featured a blend of serif and sans serif fonts, a cut-and-paste style text for the Sex Pistol name, and used very bright colors that clashed against one another (yellow and pink for UK, green and purple for North America) In an interview, Reid stated, “We came up with the ugliest cover we could think of; that in a sense would attack the idea of super-graphics. I wanted to make ugliness beautiful.” One of the main themes that the Sex Pistols embraced was non-conformity, which unironically worked with Reid’s art; creating something untraditional to society that caused mass controversy and is now widely recognized as an impactful album cover. Through this work, the British punk scene flourished and credited Reid’s work as the forefront of the punk aesthetic at the time.
