Ninja Tune XX
October 29, 2010
My original Ninja Tune logo is 20 years old this month! I’m proud to have played a part in this venerable label’s history whose design legacy is nicely described in the current issue of Blueprint, the architecture and design magazine.
An early use of the logo is seen above at the upper right corner of the Ninja Tune ‘house bag.’ The ninja character has since been nicely developed by Kevin Foakes, a.k.a. Strictly Kev of DJ Food.
My original logo design followed the stylistic flavor of a wraparound cover I illustrated for Coldcut’s “Stop This Crazy Thing” in 12-inch and mini-CD formats on the Big Life label in ’88. Coldcut were no other than Matt Black and Jonathan More who went on to found Ninja Tune a couple years later.
Both “Stop This Crazy Thing” and the Ninja logo were art-directed by Mark Porter in London who I’ve had the pleasure of working with on other projects since.
Happy 20th birthday Ninja Tune, and thanks for the generous acknowledgements and accolades in the recently-issued XX Box Set — a visual and aural extravaganza!