The Q & A: Levi's Electric Jeans Ad
Artwork copyright © 1974-2011 Alan Aldridge / Levi's Strauss
Chris BlumWe are starting off with The Electric Jean Ad illustrated by Alan Aldridge who also did The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics.
Alan AldridgeCB: Aldridge was very hot at the time he had just done The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics. which as you know is now a classic. The artists were chosen in regards to their technique and how that technique or style would lend itself to the concept and also the current pop culture trends that were moving through time and space at that given time i.e. The Beatles were very hot at that time
JC: Who's concept was this? What was the thinking behind the works?
CB: Mike and I usually came up with these concepts together, the thinking was that we had to portray Levi's as being extremely colorful with extreme patterns once again this was the style of the time. Depending on what we felt was going on at the time ,in this case there was a lot of psychedelic influence in street art and music - although it could have been Music, Politics, The Anti War movement, the Youth movement, the Womens movement, a Film, the Entertainment world,the Fashion world, or just something Mike and I felt was relevant or funny
JC: How much art direction?
CB: A lot of art direction. I would usually do a pretty tight drawing before giving it to an artist. I would say that there was more subject matter direction than art direction.
JC: Was the artist given free reign?
CB: There was always a working image done by myself, sometimes very loose ( on a napkin) or sometimes very tight, although I only worked in black and white never color. There were always work in progress images going back and forth between myself and the artist
JC: Can you give me the round park price for the artwork alone? Was this a set budget that all the artists were paid? Was this a buyout or was the artist able to retain their rights to their artwork? Was the artwork returned?
CB: I don't recall the budgets but they were very good compared to editorial art budgets which would be the closest thing to this kind of a job because this type of art was not being done in advertisements. Album covers ( which paid very little ) and editorial art were the closest categories. The art was purchased as buyout and Levi's kept all the originals some of which are still hanging in their corporate offices today
JC: Did the client have his/her hands in the production of either the concept or the artwork? Was there a committee?
CB: In those years Levi's was the "Dream" client. At one point they said to Mike and I " We have know idea what you guys are doing but just keep doing because it is really working" As the company got larger and larger and went from being privately owned to the stock exchange and went Global the " Brain Police" started getting in the way and the dream client was over.
JC: Was this animated for other ads?
CB: Yes this image was animated and the style sheets although simplified for animation purposes were from the original Aldridge art. The animation was done by Linda Taylor who should always be given credit as the person who helped create the early Levi's animation look and style
JT: Was it true that the original art was held up at the US Custom for some reason?
CB: Yes the painting was done in London where Aldridge lived and maybe "THE MAN" had their eyes on him or maybe it was a normal customs routine The story was that there was a lot of Heroin smuggling being done by tinting the white heroin with pigment and laying down an adhesive and then dry/air brushing the powder onto the wet adhesive so that it looked like paint. I believe that the air brush they were using was a micro sand blaster that was used to clean old jewelry and thusly it could blow dry pigment. I finally received the painting after they kept it for 3 weeks and there were little chip marks all over it where they chipped off flakes of paint to be tested. I had to have a lot of repair work done. I think I hired a photo retoucher to fix it
PS (CB): This piece of art and the Moscoso 3 legged pants are both in the MOMA Permanent Graphics Collection
2 comments:
Very interesting story about the art being held in customs. Too bad there was damage. Reminds me of the old illustration days where clients often had the top layer of art peeled off the illustration board to be scanned. Guess they had to do this but it sometime ruined work.
We all have Horror Stories of Lost Artworx!
Post a Comment