FUEL Design & Publishing

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FUEL Design & Publishing

FUEL are Damon Murray and Stephen Sorrell, a graphic design and publishing company established in 1991. London · www.fuel-design.com
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12/11/2024

Our latest book Propagandopolis featured in the Guardian:

Drugs, war, apartheid and the environment are some of the themes covered in the book Propagandopolis, which charts a century of efforts to influence and control

09/11/2024

Plus: Sunset Campout, The Donnas reissued, Drugdealer, Onra, 'Soft Summer Breezes,' more great music

05/11/2024

06/09/2024

Feature in the Guardian for our new book Chess Players: From Charlie Chaplin to Wu-Tang Clan

An incredible collection of photographs documenting the intersection of chess and culture is published by FUEL, in the year FIDE (the International Chess Federation) celebrates its 100th anniversary. Artists, actors, musicians and more all show their love of the most cerebral of games in Chess Playe...

21/06/2024

‘I am a son of the world of thieves’

Konyashin Hospital Morgue, 104 Moscow Prospect, Leningrad. 1966.
Right side of chest.

An original ink on cardboard drawing of a Russian criminal tattoo by Danzig Baldaev documented in 1966; photograph of an inmate by Sergei Vasiliev c.1989; both taken from the book Russian Criminal Tattoo Archive.

[Extended caption by Mark Vincent PhD, derived from Baldaev’s notes made on the reverse of the drawing.]
The bearer of this chest tattoo had been killed by a guard outside Leningrad’s House of Soviets building, following the attempted theft of the guard’s weapon. The text refers to the characteristic familial relationship formed by groups of criminals in the ‘vorovskoi mir’ (‘Thieves’ World’). Tattoos like this one marked an important rite of passage, signifying the transition into adult spheres of criminality. Such designs included specific iconography, such as roses or tulips wrapped in barbed wire, and were often made on sixteenth or eighteenth birthdays. These symbolic dates usually reflected the transfer from juvenile institutions into the larger, adult camps of the Gulag. They also reveal the extensive problem of youth homelessness and crime faced by Soviet authorities. This was particularly evident during both the Russian Civil War and collectivisation drive of the early 1930s, as millions of destitute and abandoned children known as ‘bezprizorniki’ (‘uncared for’) formed street gangs in order to survive. Built on a similar hierarchical structure to adult criminal gangs, with initiation rituals, the use of slang and tests of loyalty, these groups sought to maintain control over key territorial sites such as railway stations. Another similarity between youth gangs and adult crime groups was the prominence of tattoos. Studies indicated that many were made in juvenile institutions, which began developing a reputation for atrocious conditions, comparable – or in some cases, even worse – than those of the adult labour camps.

https://fuel-design.com/publishing/russian-criminal-tattoo-archive-book/

23/05/2024

Jonny Trunk’s Audio Erotica collates some of strangest and most significant period hi-fi brochures of the last 75 years

11/05/2024

AUDIO EROTICA | MIGHT WE INTEREST YOU IN A TEST DRIVE?

New Hardback AUDIO EROTICA Celebrates the Definitive Marketing of Bygone Hi-Def Eras, Via Issue 192, Gettin' Around

09/04/2024

07/03/2024

Great piece in Wallpaper* on our latest publication:

‘London Estates: Modernist Council Housing 1946-1981’, a new book by FUEL, is the perfect place to start for inspiration on how architecture can improve every sector of society

01/03/2024

NEW!! : Audio Erotica presents a nostalgic nirvana of the strangest and most significant period hi-fi brochures. Exclusive slipcased copies available to pre-order on our website, includes 4 Audio Erotica postcards.
https://fuel-design.com/publishing/audio-erotica/

25/01/2024

SOVIET BUS STOPS documentary has been nominated for a Danish Academy Award by film- and tv-professionals in Denmark. A huge congratulations to the whole crew. The show will be held on 3 February.

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"A unique but imaginative journey into a parallel universe"
Berlingske

❤️❤️❤️❤️
“A hugely compelling and eye-opening testimony”
Politiken

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"Completely and utterly enriching"
Ordet

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
"A better documentary doesn't exist"
Kulturinformation

"Beautifully executed and adventurous"
Information

"A tribute to the beauty of the hidden"
Magasinet rØST

"Overflowing with love and knowledge"
Magasinet kunst

IMDb rating 7.8

Directed by Kristoffer Hegnsvad
Photography by
Produced by & 291 Film Company Inc.
Presented by
With support from
World sales:

26/11/2023

Oggi il Corriere della Sera, nell'edizione cartacea, dedica una pagina intera al nostro libro Brutalist Italy.

15/11/2023

Our new book ‘Brutalist Italy’ by Roberto Conte and Stefano Perego is reviewed by Elizabeth Short in The Morning Star.

ELIZABETH SHORT unpicks the complex attitude to 20th century politics that lies behind the remarkable originality of postwar Italian concrete architecture

14/11/2023

Fyodor Savintsev’s photographs of the small wooden cottages capture the aesthetics and ethos of “a slower, more traditional pace of life.”

14/11/2023

17/10/2023

Proud winners of the ArchFilmLund top prize this weekend. Thanks to everyone for making this special project happen.
Soviet Bus Stops: The Poetry of the Road. A film by Kristoffer Hegnsvad, Nicholas Zajicek and Christopher Herwig.
Music score by Janis Lusens Jr. and Janis Lusens of Zodiac.
Presented by and 291 Film Company, , ,

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http://fuel-design.com/

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These multi-layered synth soundscapes reflect perfectly the crumbling beauty of the bus stops captured in the film. This original soundtrack LP is a limited edition of 500 copies exclusive to Kickstarter – now with gatefold sleeve. The 10-track album consists of remastered versions of Zodiac's Soviet-era works, alongside new compositions written especially for the documentary 'Soviet Bus Stops'. Back the project here http://kck.st/3rvTSD0 Jānis Lūsēns founder member of the band Zodiac talks about the synthesiser used to produce their unique sound: 'We lived in Latvia, which as part of the Soviet Union, was a closed country – so we couldn't buy foreign consumer electronics legally. Foreign synthesisers were imported by Soviet diplomats who sold them on at extremely high prices, out of our reach. However, in Latvia we had a guy called Feliks Stagnevics, who loved everything electronic and wanted to create something beautiful from parts available through the Soviet army. He created the first MUG prototype in unimaginable circumstances. If we had been in the USA it would have been developed by teams of researchers with untold resources at their disposal – here it was built by just one person. Feliks gave us the synthesiser which we used as a base instrument to score the documentary. Every sound fits perfectly – basically these sounds cannot be replicated. This instrument is unique.'

Our Kickstarter campaign for the Soviet Bus Stops documentary soundtrack has now passed 16k. This means the sleeve will now have a gatefold! There is still time to back the project here: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/fuelpublishing/soviet-bus-stops-soundtrack-lp

We shot this Super 8 film in Moscow 30 years ago this week – 15-22 Feb 1992 – shortly after the fall of the Soviet Union. The material we gathered was used to produce the third issue of FUEL magazine: USSR. The force of change made it an interesting time to visit the country: Yeltsin had just declared it legal to ‘buy and sell anything, anywhere’ and it was fascinating to experience at first hand Russia’s initial interpretation of capitalism. Elements of future FUEL publications – Looking for Lenin, Notes from Russia, Soviet Cities and Soviet Bus Stops – can be seen in the footage. Full length edit on our website. #30years #fueldesign #fuelpublishing #moscow #lookingforlenin #notesfromrussia #sovietcities #sovietbusstops #ussr #getback #mosfilm #мосфильм