The Art and Craft of Montage

 Dan Fern

Andrzej Klimowski

Simon Larbalestier

Russell Mills (from More Dark Than Shark, Mills' collaboration with Brian Eno)

I stumbled across The Art And Craft of Montage by Simon Larbalestier in a secondhand book shop recently, and although I haven't got round to reading it yet I thought I'd share a few of the images that you'll be unlikely to see elsewhere. It was published in 1993, so the techniques discussed are non-digital, and many of the pieces have a kind of depth you can't easily achieve with Photoshop.

Larbalestier is a photographer best known for collaborating with Vaughan Oliver (as 23 Envelope or V23) on designs for the 4AD label for the likes of The Pixies and Red House Painters. And speaking of Oliver, Hard Format has numerous examples of of his music graphics, including this recent post. I've never been all that much of a 4AD fan so many of these are new to me.

All of which gives me an excuse to post the Quay Brothers' gorgeous poster for their short film Nocturna Artificialia, which was an early influence on Vaughan Oliver and can be found in Rick Poynor's book on him, Visceral Pleasures.