Description

Maxell Poster. Artwork from 1981. Published in 1982

Luckily I’m a hoarder when it comes to my art and the interesting printed ephemera that springs from it.

This cool vintage poster is a nice example. A roll of over a dozen mint posters was found, along with a load of other vintage posters only a few months ago when I was clearing out my house for sale.

The poster is a lithograph in one colour, black, on plain white cartridge paper and was produced for the bestselling Japanese brand Maxell who made…yep… audio and videotape. Who could have imagined that such marvelous technology would be redundant in virtually the blink of an eye, replaced by digital printing?

Details: Size is full A1 (33” x23”) and it is beautifully printed.

What’s the story?

This image was created with the permission of the man himself, Philip Lynott, and the image was derived from my own artwork for the back cover of Thin Lizzy’s album Black Rose.
Philip was a bit stuck for money at the time so this opportunity was welcome and he got a good laugh from it too.
The poster was part of a huge ad campaign and was my own idea.
I was a freelance consultant Creative Director in a Dublin ad agency at the time and when I ran it by Philip he was chuffed so we went ahead and produced colour ads, leaflets, posters and even giant bus side hoardings.

This one was for Philip himself and we did it for a commissioned series of bus sides for Maxell Tapes, a major Japanese company back then. The first version was in black and white and used as a promotional poster for Maxell, the colour version was for the bus side had had a copy line I wrote:
‘Maxell are the best, youknowharramean.’

I thought it nailed Philip’s way of talking. I fell about laughing when I first saw it on a bus passing Grafton Street, where we had first met.
While it was a commercial promo piece produced with Philip’s permission, Philip was a bit pissed at me for this colloquial liberty but so many people came up to him and shouted over at him ‘Youknowwharramean!’ that he loved it and used to lay it on thick himself when he had a chance.
It was my gig but I negotiated and got for Philip, one large check for usage so everything ended in a laugh as he reminded me I was the only one who would have had the nerve to pull it off (putting that line in without telling him).
The poster was derived from my portrait on ‘Black Rose’ and was also used later for a Thin Lizzy Japan tour poster.
For me, this is the man himself; no one like him. I always laugh when I see it reproduced. Bet he does too.

In fhacamuid a leithéad arís. –JF
(trans: We will never see the like of him again.)