Turning revolt into style

Russ Bestley is Reader in Graphic Design & Subcultures at London College of Communication

• Introduction1 Pretty vacant: Punk graphic themes 2 Material interventions: Punk graphic processes 3 Design it yourself: The punk diaspora 4 Your generation: Punk designers and the art departments 5 New sounds, new styles: Design and technology 6 A different kind of tension: Industry and the individual 7 Parallel lines: Into the eighties 8 Retro-spective: Influence and legacyBibliography

'Russ Bestley is someone who knows more – and has written more – over the last thirty years about punk, graphic design, and popular culture than Monsieur Mangetout has had odd dinners. In his latest book – Turning Revolt Into Style – he addresses two key questions: how did a generation of young, punk-inspired graphic designers navigate the profession; and how did significant changes in printing technology, labour relations and working practices in the design profession impact their work?His aim, therefore, is to situate punk’s visual aesthetic both within cultural history and the technological, professional, and political contexts that materially shaped it. I’m pleased to say that he achieves this, producing a highly useful punk graphic design historiography in the process.'Stephen Alexander, International Times'Russ Bestley’s Turning Revolt into Style is the fruit of the author’s long study of the graphic artefacts and practices of the punk rock era... More than an exercise in nostalgia, Turning Revolt into Style deserves attention for its documentation of some enduring, influential aspects of graphic culture.'Eye'An important addition to the library of books about punk, and about punk graphic design. It does for the subject matter what many recent titles do not – it brings something new to the topic and expands what future discussions of it could be. By looking back on a social, cultural and industrial world vastly different from the one we inhabit today, Bestley covers not just the most notable and obvious things that punk changed in society and graphic design, but also the smaller influences it had through its process and production.'Punk & Post Punk, Nigel Ball