Beatmaster – “Lipservice” single cover
Sleeve for electro/hip-hop track “Lipstick”, the only release by Beatmaster, a project by Chris Lord-Alge, Keith LeBlanc, and Robbie Kilgore. The 12″ record was issued by Tommy Boy Music, New York, in 1984.
The design is credited to Steven Miglio, with art direction by Monica Lynch. The typography is just as in-your-face as the airbrushed pink mouth by Robert Risko: Two lines that both take up the whole width, with Baby Teeth in loud green. And Cathedral in reversed caps. Like most blackletter styles, the contoured split-stroke design by Martin Wait doesn’t really lend itself to being used in all caps. (Unless the aim is sheer volume, of course.) This is most evident in the descending swash T’s and the spacing issues they cause. Letraset offered a tamer alternate for this character, but either the supply of this glyph had already been depleted, or the designer digged the rhythmization of the word.
