The legendary graphic designer who created Oasis’ hit album covers has said he feels like an ‘honorary Cumbrian’ after living in the county for eight years.
Brian Cannon, who lives in Windermere and owns the renowned graphic design business Microdot, is the brains behind some of the most iconic album covers in history, including Oasis’ (What’s the Story) Morning Glory and Definitely Maybe as well as the band’s striking logo.
Moving to Cumbria to live with his wife Jill Hodgson in 2014, Brian later set up the Microdot HQ and boutique in Kendal in 2019 which further expanded in 2021 and sells original prints, posters, accessories and clothing.
He said: “I ended up with the shop because my partner Jill lived in Kendal, so I moved up to Cumbria in 2014 and I never looked back and it’s been fabulous. We had an opportunity for a little shop come up and we went for it and it has been growing ever since.
“I consider myself an honorary Cumbrian if you like and I certainly consider Cumbria my home even though I’m from Lancashire. I’ve always had a love of the Lakes ever since I was a little boy when my mother used to take us to Bowness on day trips. But I live in the national park and I go wild camping and mountain walking as much as I possibly can, which isn’t often around work but I love it, It’s my therapy walking in the hills.”
On top of his busy schedule managing the boutique, Brian has also shot several album covers in Cumbria on Shap for The Lathums and at Wastwater for Déjà Vega and Europe, best known for their hit song The Final Countdown.
Brian, whose iconic album covers have plastered the walls of teenage bedrooms for generations, said he visualises his ideas before he even starts putting pen to paper.
He said: “I literally have a vision in my head, I can just see it, like all those Oasis covers before those shots were taken, I could see them in my head. Then it’s just a case of realising that image in physical form on a record sleeve. But it’s all based on research of the music, the lyrics and the band, if I could define how this all truly works I would sell it and become a millionaire overnight.
“I always regard the band as the client, not the record company. Oftentimes, especially with Oasis I would be with them in the studio while they’re recording, reading lyric sheets and getting my head into the record as much as possible.
“I was there for a lot of the recording of their albums, but for Morning Glory, I spent more time in the studio than Noel Gallagher did. They recorded Morning Glory at Rockfield Studios in South Wales, which is a residential studio where you actually live there while they’re recording, you don’t go home to a hotel or house, it’s a fantastic place.
“The only people there were Owen Morris who produced the record, Nick Bryan who was the guy from the studio who knew all the equipment, the band and me and that was it and it was absolutely remarkable. It’s not that I took it for granted back then, but it was the eye of the hurricane, the calm with all the mayhem breaking out all around it and right in the middle was just us lot sitting there and watching them record one of the biggest albums of all time, it was astonishing.”
The graphic designer recalled that he first met Noel in the lift of an office building where the pair worked in the 90s. He added: “The story goes we got chatting in a lift because of some Adidas trainers I bought in Italy, but there is a bit more to it than that. He was working for Inspiral Carpets, the Manchester band, as a roadie, and they happened to have an office in the same building that I did, we just got talking about football and trainers and it all kicked off from there really.”
Brian, who also shot album covers for The Verve and Suede, said that he was able to pick some clear favourite projects despite having worked on so many.
He said: “There’s a few favourites, but Definitely Maybe, everybody knows it, I came up with the idea and designed the logo and it’s actually my handwriting on that record, it’s a myth that the handwriting is Noel’s.
“There’s also Some Might Say, which is Oasis’ first number one single and my mum and dad were on the front cover of it, so it’s pretty special to me. But The Verve as well, that was an amazing project to work on and to be working with them and Oasis at the same time was just phenomenal really.”
The blurred figures on the front of (What’s the story) Morning Glory are actually Brian on (on the right) and Sean Rowley (on the left) known mostly for his work as a DJ in London.
While the graphic designer doesn’t draw inspiration from Cumbria and the Lake District directly, he said living and taking time out in the county had a positive affect on his mental health.
He said: “It’s not like I go into the mountains and come back and think right I’m going to do an album cover shoot based in the mountains, but what it does do is when you camp on a mountain on your own in a one man it allows you the opportunity to think or to not think and relax and then that helps with everything, not just work but life I think. I do enjoy the solitude. But it’s a wonderful place to live, I really love it and I’m fascinated with West Cumbria, it’s almost a country all on its own.”
Microdot was set up by Brian in 1990 after he finished his BA in graphic design. He then went on to turn the company into one of the worldwide leading figures in music related packaging.
He added: “Microdot is kind of like my alter ego really, it changes shape and size all the time, but back in the 90s we were based in London and there was about half a dozen of us, then it was just me for a while and now there is four of us again. But here at Microdot’s HQ in Kendal we encourage people to come and hang out at the boutique, that’s just the kind of guys we are here.”
The company is currently in negotiations to open another Microdot shop in Manchester city centre that Brian hopes will be open by March. He added that they also have several collaborations with big brands in the pipeline and that he remains open to the idea of working with bands and musicians in the future.
