Jonathan Deamer

A few mates and I run Liverpool culture-magazine hush-hush*.  We try to interview folks from the creative industries on Merseyside whenever we can, and this month we chatted to graphic and media design firm Juno. You may not have heard of them, but you’re sure to have seen some of their work – so how did they start?

“We were at a stage where we where thinking ‘if something big doesn’t come up by the end of the month, we’re going to have to knock it on the head’”, says Juno co-director and founder Scott. “But then”, according to partner-in-design Liz, “we got the call from Sony…”

And in a nutshell, that’s how the Liverpool Art School graduates took their fledgling graphic design company from a part-time affair doing the occasional flyer for fifty quid to the number one port of call for indie bands wanting artwork across the country, with recent clients including Arctic Monkeys, Klaxons and The Dead 60s. Of course though, there was more to it than that. Liz says that “everyone working in graphics wants to design for the music industry. We knew we wanted to design, but designing for music was just a dream, so we were happy to wait and see what came up”. And that’s what they did, setting up a small studio with a group of mates from art school, purely as somewhere to work from. As more and more of them left to get jobs, Scott and Liz started designing for Deltasonic, the then-tiny independent label home to groups like The Coral and The Zutons. And as the label’s acts began to get bigger, so did Juno.

With the security of a contract with Sony behind them, the team were able to try their hand at music videos. “We knew we could do it – it was just a case of getting ourselves to a position where we had the chance to prove ourselves”.  And the result was what recent addition to the team, fine art graduate Gavin, says is his favourite piece of work the company has produced, the clip for The Dead 60s’ “Ghostfaced Killer” - “it was great that it was the first video we did, and everyone loved it so much”.

hush-hush* spoke to Juno while they popped out of their offices for a break from the hectic work on the second Arctic Monkey’s album – the follow up to what is probably the company’s most well known work, the near-iconic sleeve of “Whatever People Say I Am, That’s What I’m Not” (pictured). Everyone knows the story behind the photo – Juno gave some mates of the band £70 for a night out to create some drunken photo opportunities. But not many know the photo was in fact taken in Liverpool’s own Korova. Despite their biggest work being so closely linked to the city though, Juno aren’t sure Liverpool has too much of an influence on their work. While they recognise its status as a musical city – “we know loads of students come to university here because they know it’s got a good nightlife or they’re well into The Beatles” – their influences tend to be “whatever we’re immersed in”, and while that may well be the atmosphere of the city, it could just as easily anything from foreign cinema to children’s television programmes.

One of the company’s productions that does seem to be influenced by the city they’re based in, however, is The Basement’s video for “Just Caught A Face”, set in the sort of cosy old-style pub one can only find on Merseyside. It also features what Scott calls “one of those happy accidents” – a central scene of the clip is a real-life drunken fight kicking off on-set, caught on camera. Really though, the main difference being in Liverpool makes to Juno as a company is that they say they’re happy to be away from the London creative industries rat race and “all those corporate cliques – we can just get on and do our own thing up here”.

So what does 2007 hold for Juno? “Hopefully some time off,” according to Liz. “We haven’t had a break in four years!”  Sounds like they deserve one though.

Thanks to Carina Steinmetz for help with the interview!

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