…turning rebellion into money.” So the line goes from The Clash’s ‘White Man in Hammersmith Palais’.

Virgin Money, the bank owned by Sir Richard Branson, recently announced that punk is officially dead and the Sex Pistols will now be featured on their credit cards. The credit cards will display the album art from 1977’s “Never Mind The Bollocks”. Another design is inspired by the song “Anarchy in the U.K”.

As The Guardian points out, that very song also ironically includes the lyric “your future dream is a shopping scheme”. Branson, who signed the Sex Pistols to Virgin Records nearly 40 years ago, said in a video statement that the band’s “power to provoke is undimmed.”

“In launching these cards, we wanted to celebrate Virgin’s heritage and difference,” Virgin Money CEO Jayne-Anne Gadhia said on her blog. “The Sex Pistols challenged convention and the established ways of thinking – just as we are doing today in our quest to shake up UK banking”.

What we are seeing here are two worlds colliding and, personally, it leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Why? It’s big business re-appropriating youth culture once again and attempting to have some kind of cool ‘look at me’ cache. Whilst there is nothing new about this (the Che Guevara iconic photograph adorns many products), we have to ask ourselves is it right? To me this comes across as lazy thinking to regurgitate something that was slightly subversive from back in the day to adorn a credit card to gain cheap publicity. Also, who would want to own this?

At the end of the day, the the banking crisis created more anarchy in this country than the Sex Pistols and their punk cohorts ever did.

Yes… it’s cash from chaos.

We’re hitting West Bromwich next week for our client New Square shopping centre, hunting out stylish shoppers for #nsstreetstyle. We’re going to be on the look out for people rocking those s/s 15 trends, highlighting how people can steal their style from the centre’s fashion tenants. Street Style photography has boomed over the last decade and it’s great to be able to capture people in a relaxed and informal way and in a ‘real-world’ environment, rather within the artificial setting of a studio. Here’s some of our previous #nsstreetstyle work for New Square, we’ll share some of the new shots with you here shortly.

Having witnessed the Pixies performing at Castlefield, Manchester. I thought I’d once again take a look at the work of the designer Vaughan Oliver. Vaughan Oliver provided a unique visual style behind acts like the Pixies, the Cocteau Twins, The Breeders, Ultra Vivid Scene and Modern English, Vaughan’s creative partnership with 4AD rivalled that of Peter Saville’s and Factory. I think what’s interesting about his work is the fact that we are looking at design pre Apple Macintosh, it still has that very loose organic feel with a great sense of alchemy.

Wowzers, Trumpet PR and Design has been nominated for a Northern Marketing Award (Low Budget Category). We’ve been selected alongside our friends at Liquid for our work on the Bravissimo ‘Boob School’ campaign. It was such a fun campaign to work on and I think that hopefully that was what came across in our entry. The winners are announced at on Wednesday 3 July. Keep everything (quite literally) crossed for us on the night! prolificnorth.co.uk liquidsolution.co.uk

This week we’ve been inspired by the photographs of Jame’s Ravilious, his photographs have a great sense of ‘Englishness’ Although lesser known than some of the more celebrated photographers, James’s pictures are composed with great sense of design, wit and humanity. They also capture an affection and admiration for the people whose lives he recorded.
www.jamesravilious.com

Simone Ridyard communicates architectural ideas through drawings and this now involves representing various city scapes through precise pencil drawings overlaid with watercolour washes. There is a vibrancy and loose quality that almost goes against the grain of these modern stuctures. For more information simoneridyard.co.uk

With Record Store Day on our doorstep (20th April) I thought it would be worthwile looking at some album covers within my record collection and for me Barney Bubbles work still stands up, fun, playful and way ahead of its time.

Check out more of his work either in your own record collection or ‘Reasons to be Cheerful, The life and work of Barney Bubbles’. He was one of the pioneers of British graphics, but he refused to sign his own work. Ah it still stands up.
barneybubbles.com recordstoreday.co.uk