ASHLEY RONNING
X-RAY SPEXFor this project, I’ve chosen the incredible 1970s English band X-Ray Spex. The group’s frontwoman, Poly Styrene,
formed the band by placing an ad that said: YOUNG PUNX WHO WANT TO STICK IT TOGETHER. That explains it all,
really. They made awesome, raucous, bratty punk music. High energy, lo-fi anthems of mass production and identity.
They brought fun to a punk scene that was, at the time, overly masculine and destructive. I’ve known of X-Ray Spex
for a while, but really got into them last year, as their debut album Germfree Adolescents has been in the high
rotation section of my housemate’s record collection. I’ve spent a lot of time dancing around the lounge room to “Let’s
Submerge”, and singing the title track, “Germfree Adolescents”, really loud: “Scrub away, scrub away, scrub away!”
Their usual aesthetic for merch was to have a lot of high-contrast photo collages with day-glo text and accents. It’s
such a strong visual image for that moment in punk. To update it, I went for an inky and bold illustrated look, keeping
it fun and colourful. Day-glo colour was priority one! I listened to a lot of interviews with Poly Styrene while coming up
with ideas, and she spoke a lot about her fascination with mass consumption and synthetic products. I decided to go
with an obstacle course lab full of bubbling glassware, adding the five test tubes at the end of the line as a nod to the
cover of Germfree Adolescents. I made the original design using pens, brush and ink, then took it to Photoshop for
touch-ups. It was then screen-printed onto the tee and finished off with puff paint details, which made it pop! It was a
great challenge to combine my style with the existing strong look of a band I love, but hopefully they’d be happy with it.
hands on