HIS art work has been on every bus station hoarding, every billboard, every boarded- up house, and on a lot of T-shirts in the last few months, but you won’t know his name.
His designs adorn the album covers of some of the most cutting- edge dance groups and last month global phenomenon The Prodigy sported his artwork on their latest album, Fat of the Land.
Alex Jenkins , a 25-year-old from Treorchy, is the in-house graphic artist for record label XL recordings, and just 18 months ago was plucked from obscurity working for Caerphilly firm Label Image, and thrust into the mass-market, high-volume, in-yer-face world of the music business.
“I suppose every graphic designer dreams of working for a record company, because it allows you to be very creative and you also get to work in the world of music, and get to see your work in record shops, everywhere in fact.
“It is my job to come up with a clear concept that can be used as a branding tool. That is why the crab image works for the album, because it works on billboards, T-shirts, and on the side of buses.”
Jenkins worked very closely with the creative genius of The Prodigy , Liam Howlett, thrashing out ideas for the albums graphics.
“Liam and I would telephone each other to talk about ideas and to brainstorm for new ones.
But for a last-minute change of heart by Liam Howlett the album cover could have been very different.
“We actually went through with a photo shoot for an album design that was pulled. We had a chunk of kebab meat branded with the record title, Fat of the Land, and arranged a photo shoot in a kebab shop with all the band, but Liam changed his mind.
“I had one night to come up with a completely new design. I had to get that design done even if it meant not sleeping, because we had to get a design off to the licensers in America the very next day.
“I found an image of a small crab, blew it up on the computer and then tweaked the background. It was midnight and I was really tired and at the end of my tether. I thought let’s go for it. I faxed it through to Liam from my desk and fell asleep. Luckily he liked it. It was a much better image.”
Jenkins’s rise has been rapid indeed, graduating recently from Bath University with a First in photography and graphics. As a fledgling designer his idols were Vaughan Oliver of V23, celebrated album cover designer of American indie band the Pixies, and Peter Saville, designer of New Orders album covers. In what must be a pinch-yourself situation Jenkins now shares office space next to Oliver and counts him as a friend.
By TW
Alex Jenkins (Circa September 1997) with his album cover design for the Prodigy album The Fat of the Land.