Andy Vella rebuilt The Cure's visual world for its first album in 16 years (interview)

After a 16-year break, The Cure's comeback record was met with widespread acclaim; Vella, the band's designer of over 40 years, had to mark a new era without breaking the band's visual continuity.

Float a 1975 sculpture in black space as the cover, then hide the album: letters only under UV, ink that reveals the head when heated, projections on towers.

A new distressed 'Cureation' serif wordmark; the Bagatelle sculpture re-created in motion with Ben Parker for the website and lyric videos; thermographic-ink limited vinyl; bio vinyl and eco merchandise; teaser displays with UV-hidden letters and a poster outside the Crawley pub of the band's first gig.

The album was 'met with widespread acclaim'; within a week of the Crawley poster going up, someone smashed its glass cabinet to steal it, and anamorphic projections of the sculpture ran on buildings worldwide including Blackpool Tower.

In a Creative Review interview published November 4, 2024, graphic designer Andy Vella — The Cure's collaborator of over 40 years — walked through the artwork for Songs of a Lost World, the band's first studio album in 16 years. As with every Cure album, Vella created a new wordmark: 'Cureation', a distressed, tactile serif designed after hearing new music on the band's 2022 tour, which he and Robert Smith agreed had 'a dark sophistication' with 'some playfulness in the typography.'

For the cover, Smith suggested Janez Pirnat's 1975 sculpture Bagatelle; Vella pictured it 'floating in space, almost as a distant relic from a forgotten time.' The sculpture then moved: Vella worked with colleague Ben Parker to animate it across the album website and lyric videos, and anamorphic projections of it ran on buildings around the world, including Blackpool Tower in Smith's hometown. Formats ranged from digital to cassette to a limited edition in thermographic ink — the sculpture's head appears when heated — on bio vinyl with 'eco merchandise.'

The teasers hid the album in plain sight: outdoor displays in cities worldwide showed the release date and the title's initials, with the remaining letters visible only under UV light, and a typographic poster stood outside The Railway pub in Crawley, where the band played its first gig. 'Within a week of the poster going up, someone had smashed the glass cabinet that contained the poster to nick it!' Vella said. He recalled fans commenting that the album 'looks like classic Cure too, which is simply immense.'

Each Cure era is defined by its wordmark, so the album identity carried the weight of announcing the band's return after 16 years.

Concealment did the marketing: UV-hidden letters and heat-revealed ink gave fans something to uncover and share ahead of release.

The venues and objects were chosen for biography — the first-gig pub, Smith's hometown tower — turning placement into storytelling.

A heritage band's comeback art works by continuity plus one concealed layer — make fans discover the design, and the discovery becomes the campaign.

Songs of a Lost World was released to widespread acclaim, lauded as 'powerful, possessed of a dark beauty and frequently moving'; Vella said the response had 'definitely resonated hugely' and that the record was going down as classic Cure in sound and look.