There’s something about Orange Amps.
They are as aurally as they are aesthetically pleasing; the logo typeface as iconic as the product itself.
Over the years, Orange has provided amplification for artists as diverse as Fleetwood Mac, James Brown, the Beach Boys, Tina Turner, Johnny Cash, Madonna, Slipknot, Kid Rock, and countless other up-and-comers and also-rans in between.
So it is little surprise that there is public desire and company inclination enough to see the release of a coffee table book dedicated to the brand.
The result is a 200-page flipbook, covered in luxurious orange velvet, which splits the Orange story into two parts – the building of the brand, and its various products and users – telling the tale through an archive of press cuttings, photographs and promotional material.
‘Building The Brand’ chronicles company founder Cliff Cooper, who went from radio and television repairman in the early ‘60s, to bass player in a band, to opening his first shop in 1968 on New Compton Street, part of London’s “music walk” that stretched between Denmark Street and Shaftesbury Avenue in Soho. The store was Cooper’s first enterprise to bare the ‘Orange’ name, and when the basement recording studios didn’t pay the bills, he designed, built and sold his own amplifiers on the ground floor from early ’69, with a sideline in second-hand instruments. He then branched out into equipment hire (including to the Munich Olympics in 1972), before expanding the business to include artist management, a record label, music publishing and an artist booking agency.
Brand building also included comic strip adverts, branded beach buggies and motor sport sponsorship; as well as company expansion into Europe, China and America; and most recently the development of a new product, the Orange Personal Computer, an all-in-one playing, recording and editing console.
The flip side of the tome, ‘The Book Of Orange’, celebrates the company’s more than 40 years of innovation in amplifier design, aesthetics and sound technology.
It covers Cooper’s first amp invention – a miniature transistor amp with an ear piece, conceived in response to noise complaints from neighbours at his Stratford demo recording studio in 1966 – and Orange’s subsequent 50-plus editions, including a 12×24 foot “world’s biggest guitar cabinet”.
It also details the brand’s use of colour (which has included editions in black, white and green), picture-frame design, unique hieroglyphic symbols and the development of the equipment’s distinctive “warm and crunchy” sound.
This side of the book closes with a gallery and testimonials from “only a small selection of the many” artists who have used and helped to promote the Orange brand, which include Led Zeppelin, Oasis, PJ Harvey, Clutch, Kaiser Chiefs, Fall Out Boy, Mastodon, Down and Scissor Sisters.
The book is certainly a comprehensive overview of the history of Orange, with just two drawbacks, as I see it – it is just an overview, particularly the product details; and some of the images could be better, such as some low-quality scans (although this could be down to the original source material) and the use of some unclear artist pictures (I would imagine many artists would be happy to pose in a specific Orange photo shoot or supply top-quality live images).
Having said that, the book doesn’t claim to be anything more than a coffee table book – it’s not an encyclopedia or in-depth study of day one to current day of the company with full technical specifications and product reviews – and by pick-up-from-the-table-and-flick-through standards it is a good and attractive offering, so, thumbs up.
The Orange coffee table book is priced at £29.99 and available right now (for orders to the UK) at this link: http://orangeamps.com/uk-shop/product.php?id_product=54
