Monday 25 April 2016

dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to get through this thing called life

Via Hyperallergic’s Required Reading links comes the fascinating and forward-thinking tale of how the Artist solved the dilemma of branding himself with a symbol that was unpronounceable and naturally was not in the ASCII or Dingbats gallery of glyphs. Having resolved to commit to his new moniker, Prince designed his own font and began to send out hundreds of publicity diskettes (with instructions) from Paisley Park to media outlets in 1993.
Some believe that this move was a passive-aggressive way at getting back at his recording label, unhappy with his contract, but the Artist formerly known as Prince was able to get the magazines and newspapers to play along, at a time when the on-line world and graphic-interface was just emerging and no one spoke in emoji. I really appreciated this artefact and remembrance and as with the loss of another legend earlier this year (2016 needs to seriously stop killing musicians but we know there are some wondrous jam-sessions happening in Heaven right now), sometimes it’s easier to pick out and latch on to the minute details (like the equally pioneering bowie.net) in order to esteem careers that are too momentous to celebrate with the standard obituaries.