New wave aesthetic research

I have recently got a book called 'This Ain't No Disco' out of the library. The book is a garishly coloured collection of famous New Wave album covers from around the same time, the late 70s to 1980s. It is important for me to broaden my New Wave visual repertoire just as it is for No Wave so that I have an understanding of the kind of visual tropes to avoid. I want to be opposing the New Wave aesthetic whilst creating something that is distinctive of the era.

Nearly all covers involve an array of bright clashing colours and geometric forms that are reminiscent of the pop art movement. Typography is carefully considered a highly legible, often with 2 or more typefaces on one page. I can notice some similarity between certain covers and No Wave albums, for example, the Billy Idol cover looks a lot like an album by Lydia lunch in terms of composition. This show that there were certain aesthetics that could generalise across a lot of album covers at the time. The covers in general, however, are just far more clean and polished than their No Wave counterparts. This will be to do with the monetisation of the scene as well as the aesthetic choice as for a lot of No Wave artists it would not have been possible to rent out a photography studio and get some good PR shots. There is one interesting compilation album called 'No Wave' but featuring the names of British New Wave artists that were around in the later 80s, this could be a hint towards the No Wave era or just a play on words. Its probably the latter as the design is very garish and definitely not No Wave-inspired.