Tomato
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- broxybluenose
Rare Tomato Book/Catalogue up for sale.
- Spookytim0
Was it just me? I never did get the whole Beatlemania surrounding Tomato.
- broxybluenose0
Some of their work is beautiful.
- 23kon0
When did you stumble across Tomato Spookytim?
If was in this later stage around 2001 onwards then I can understand why you didnt think much of the "hype" that surrounded them.To me, Tomato were quite a large influence on the work I was doing at college. I'm talking when "MMM... Skyscraper I Love You" book was out. The influence from that book and work by David Carson fuelled many a cut and paste photocopy project and scribblings.
I still love both styles.
- Spookytim0
Re: Some of their work is beautiful.
mmmm, I've seen it done better by Oskar Fischinger and he was doing it way back in the 1930's. Also, a designer called Emma Cervenka did a slightly less abstract /slightly more commercial but arguably more beautiful piece of AV along these lines for Odeon cinemas about ten years ago. The final version that appeared in the cinemas was really beautiful but edited to be very commercially appealing. Her original edit was absolutely stunning and I would say much better than the Tomato example cited here.
- broxybluenose0
Funny you should say that about "Skyscrapper"
- Spookytim0
23kon...
I was first exposed to the Tomato Beatlemania around 1993 when I was studying at StMartins. Graham Wood was in the 3rd year when I was in the first and his wife was in my year. The whole thing was exploding for them around that time. Graham Wood had just walked out of Leagas Delaney with a large chunk of the Adidas account and everyone was wetting their collective knickers about the group. Everyone in my year was crazily buying Mmm Skyscraper and suddenly every college project crit was filled with Tomato clones.I was freelancing at Aboud-Sodano at the time and I guess things seemed a bit more 'classy' in our studio. They just seemed like a bunch of monkeys doing nothing particularly interesting but getting this huge buzz about them.
Very much a student sketchbook mentality and repsect to them for that, but I think there was a lot of hot air blown up their arses... more than they perhaps deserved.
- 23kon0
So no jealousy involved whatsoever with them getting all the attention? :P
Only kidding.
Aye if you were at a more classic design studio freelancing then what they were doing mustve seemed a sham. I guess they are more "artists" than typical graphic designers and that whats makes their final results different.They were first to do what they were doing so that definitely makes them original and i did look up to the early stuff they did - their work definitely made me "change" the way I worked and pushed me to experiment a little more. I wasnt copying what they were doing but their influence made my stuff a little more "off the wall" - something the classic typography lecturers etc didnt like haha.
StMartins seems to spew out this sort of clique though who are well connected just cos they are from "stmartins". You'll find that most people from outwith London actually despise the pedestals that these artists have been raised up on and that they only got there because of the college they went to. If they were a student anywhere else they wouldnt have got the recognition being at StMartins and being in London and managing to to to all the right parties gave them.
- Spookytim0
Totally agree with you about StMartins and the mock kudos imbued on the right accolytes. There were some really talented people in my year who quietly get on with being amazing designers... Huw Morgan at GTF, Matt Rudd, Rob Andrews at R&D&Co to name a few, but overall there was this cliquely "Cool us" vibe that meant many talentless wodges got the attention and the limelight.
Having spent three years there I can testify that it was a total pile of over-rated shite. Most people I speak to from that period say the same thing too.
As for Tomato though... nah, I just can't see it. Its not jealousy. I see that some things they did were valuable and interesting, and it was pioneering to get Skyscraper out there for sure... kick started the new wave of studio-focussed book publishing. But so much of what they did was actually infantile shite I think. It was meaningless daubing. I think they very quickly got to playing with how far they could take the piss. I was taught by Dirk Van Dooren in my third year and just found I fundamentally disagreed with almost everything he ever said, so maybe that discoloured my opinion of the group, I don't know.
Does nobody remember how great Fuel were at the time? Fuel were about a million times more interesting than Tomato, and their self-publication projects predated, and ran rings around Tomato's I always thought.
- chossy0
tomato did some cool stuff
A producer / director I do freelance for used them for some old radio scotland ads they were nice at the time. Unfortunatley my old boss and this same director as well keep mentioning these ads and keep trying to re-do the tomato style of old which, I'm a bit sick of to be honest, it was well done at the time but move on people.
- 23kon0
Skyscraper definitly did what you said and inspired a new wave of publishing and an influence on designers to break away from the norm.
I think thats actually why I liked it so much, their stuff and David Carson which was deconstructive and broke away from the normal rules that were being taught to me and was going in one ear and out the other.I do remember Fuel. The name rings a bell, did they used to do lots of interactive work too?
The main thing i remember about back in those days was that you'd look forward to the next issue of Creative Review coming out to see what weird and wonderful stuff was on the CD Rom from Anti-Rom and Tomato etc.
- Spookytim0
This piece here is to me the greatest example of Tomato hype being almost comedic and piss taking. Maybe it wasn't their fault, but when Underworld releasd this album you could practically hear the creative industry holding its breath in anticipation of the convention challenging, heart stoppingly original artwork that would accompany Underworld's triumphant return. And instead We got this from Jason Kedgley...
.. and people tried hard to adore it for a few weeks, but there was nothing there to adore. This to me was where Tomato exposed themselves and the light began to fade. Its a sloppy, lazy, uninspired artwork that could be for anyone. It actually looks like the printed slip you get in the case when you buy a blank CD imho.
- chossy0
This was probably the main reason why I left my old job actually as my boss used to just do the same shit day in day out, and I never got the feeling I was going to progress.
- broxybluenose0
It's all good, saying how shit they were now, but nobody can question how influential they were in the mid 90's, not from a design perspective, but as artists. Yes, some of their work was poor, but work, such as the Underworld cover above, are beautiful piece's of artwork, regardless of wether you think it works as an album cover.
- Spookytim0
In my own defense I was saying the same things back then too, its not a retrospective view I'm offering.
As for the piece above, if we are excluding its intended application when judging it (ie not as a sleeve, which it was, but as a piece of art) then I have to say I think Yves Klein did it better.
Influential... yes, only a fool would try to disagree with that. My point is merely that I don't believe they were a match for the god-like status that was given to them.
- invisiblechamber0
was that tomato = underworld?
- Eh?... Tomato did all Underworld's artwork. Darren Emerson, I think, was linked to Tomato somehow.Spookytim
- i darkly remember an article about underworld being the same people with sound studion in the same house..invisiblechamber
- There was some overlap of members and I think Underowlrd did set up in Tomato for a while.Spookytim
- i liked that overlap :)invisiblechamber
- Karl Hyde was tomato, Emerson was just the DJ that made them sound good ;)kelpie
- 23kon0
yeah i think it was darren that was linked to tomato.
without checking google then pretending i knew it was him for a fact lol.
but yeah one of em was.