|
INTRODUCTIONIn The Beginning From the very beginning there has been a great deal of interest in rave flyer art on the part of many many people around the world. With graphics being one of the most dominant areas of collecting, worldwide, it comes as no surprise that many people recognized - both - the uniqueness of the graphics representing this new "Techno-Rave"** culture, and the potential significance of the beginning of this new cultural movement. The attention that was focused on the early Rave scene, was fueled - in part - by the relatively fresh memory of what happened with the evolution of the Psychedelic culture of the 60's. People who love graphics are held captive by color and design, often in all forms; and for the eclectic collector, the process of collecting never ends. So it was with many people - outside of the "scene" - who had previously collected many visual formats including Psychedelic and Punk imagery. The arrival of these somewhat mysterious pieces of advertising, which often turned up on the sidewalks and in little counter-culture shops, immediately became one more collectable. A collectable with a uniqe twist; the twist being that it was an "underground" movement. And while it did start out that way, it wasn't long before it became a mainstream underground movement in the wake of highly capitalized events with major promotions and - potentially - big profits to be had. But from the beginning there were also many people within the scene itself who were intrigued by
the new graphics and themes and the events that they represnted. Early-on, the level of interest
for some people was quite serious. I heard of one exhibit of very early LA flyers back in - roughly -
1991 - 1992, in which someone actually stole many of the flyers in the exhibit for their own
collection. The Interest In The Art Form & The Number Of Collectors The interest in flyers of the "rave/house" music scene grew steadly, fueled in part by the evolution of the art form itself. Starting out with many unsophisticated, hand rendered - perhaps quaint - compositions, which often borrowed images off of comic books and cereal boxes; flyer art has extablished a style of its own. This has been shaped, primarily, by the availability of many creative computer applications such as Photoshop, Illustrator, Bryce KPT, Kai's Power Tools and others. U.S. artists and designers in particular have leveraged the new technologies to produce a large body of cutting edge design solutions; solutions that have offered up new stylistic treatments of composition, typography and color. And slowly but surely the new graphics of the scene have been adopted by the commercial design industry and their influence can be found in many forms of advertising today. ( June 2010 ) In the U.S. the interest in collecting flyers was quite strong initially, it began a downturn
around 1999-2000. Ebay had many flyers for sale, though they commanded very little money. Actually
the time invested to make one sale on ebay was not worth it. Some flyers were selling and still sell
for like $25 for 75 - 100 flyers as a lot. Currently the interest in U.S. flyers on ebay is at
a standstill. The greatest interest in flyer collecting was and still is in England although with
the exception of rare early flyers, most flyers do not sell for much. As with all collectibles
there is a period where interest drops - and then returns. It will be interesting to see what
the future holds for flyer collecting. I myself do it because it is a fun hobby - though I no
longer trade flyers - having been "burned" twice by a couple of unscrupulous flyer collectors. And
it's just not worth all the postage at this point. I was after several U.S. djs for years, to buy their
old flyers - which I later found out they had sold on ebay for almost nothing. So for now I've
given up the chase. [**"RAVE": It's fair to mention that the term Rave became passe' around the fall of 1992.]
|
