OBI Strips – Volume 1

There’s something undeniably cool about OBI strips. To someone who can’t read Japanese, they just seem to add an element of ‘oooh’ to anything they sit with. I once read about Japanese graphic design in general, the reason we find it appealing is simply because we can’t read the words. We aren’t distracted by what they are saying and focus purely on the form of the design.

I’ve explored Japanese versions of iconic hip hop designs before, and I can’t see myself stopping any time soon. So following a recent pub session with like-minded vinyl enthusiasts who have a particular love for Electro, when on the subject of OBI strips I had mentioned that I’d always fancied doing a set of OBIs for the Street Sounds series and you could almost feel the excitement in the air!

I set to work creating a design complementing the LP covers. Typically OBIs are not as wide as I have done here. But as the first LP in the series uses the original version of the Street Sounds logo much larger than in subsequent LPs, I wanted to make sure the OBI completely covered it up, and then of course making sure the whole set are the same width.

Please note, due to differences in print runs and storage, the original Electro LPs do differ slightly in colour. Likewise, I have tried the best I could to colour-match the graphics to the original copies I have. But we are talking brand new litho print vs print almost forty years old! So please allow some minor differences in the colour.