Total creative freedom: Andy Vella’s posters for the Teenage Cancer Trust 2026 concerts

Veteran music industry designer Andy Vella has created a series of gig posters and art prints for all the bands performing at this year’s Teenage Cancer Trust concerts at the Royal Albert Hall. ‘Cure-ated’ by The Cure’s Robert Smith, the 2026 line-up includes Elbow, Mogwai, Manic Street Preachers, My Bloody Valentine, Garbage – and keep an eye out for Placebo too.

The project came about when the Teenage Cancer Trust contacted Andy, who has designed album artwork and posters for The Cure since the 1980s. Taking the iconic Robert Smith photo, silhouetted with his guitar on the Boys Don’t Cry single, Andy altered the figure’s pose to riff on artwork Jamie Hewlett created for the Teenage Cancer Trust, which is used for its awards, with a guitarist about to smash his instrument.

“I thought it would be cool to play on the original vibe. I got my inks and photocopies and collaged a sequence from the original Boys Don’t Cry still, and made him almost magician-like, announcing the very special band line-up,” says Andy.

Six gig posters have been designed, with the graphics adapted across the collateral for the 2026 concert series, to give it a cohesive identity. The background, too, exemplifies Andy’s layered, collaged, mish-mashed approach – and his energy.

“I created it organically from lots of photocopied photos. Cut them, screwed with them, tore them – thus the background was born,” he says. “I was after a spontaneous, energetic feel – kinda pop art but with a bit of grunge thrown in. I was after the energy you get from being at gigs.”

Similarly, he created a distressed-look typeface he dubbed Teenage Gothic, which includes special characters and numbers. Again, it uses photocopies and scans to bring fragmented elements of letters together. “It’s kind of a metaphor based on what the Teenage Cancer Trust does, helping young people deal with the disease and get better,” he says.

Whereas the posters for each concert follow a similar format for continuity, Andy has also designed individual art prints for each band performing, including the support acts Placebo, Wolf Alice, Joy Formidable, Chvrches, Mrcy, Nilüfer Yanya and Craven Faults. These he has taken in all sorts of unique creative directions, and will be on sale, signed by the artists, to benefit the Teenage Cancer Trust. There is also a Boys Don’t Cry lenticular art print with nine panels that reveal the evolution of the guitarist figure that appears on the posters, which Andy collaborated on with Robert Smith himself.

“I had total creative freedom – in fact, this was the best project,” continues Andy. “I listened to the bands and came up with the art, I was jumping around my studio with the volume up, watching videos, absorbing the colours and having the best golden hour.”

He has gone to town with the art prints. The Placebo poster features scratch-to-reveal patches; sedum heads from Andy’s garden served as a brush for the Joy Formidable artwork; some Japanese inking techniques; and the glow-in-the-dark ink on the Manic Street Preachers image was squirted from a syringe. The black enamel gloss on the Elbow poster reflects the equilibrium of singer Guy Garvey’s voice.

The artworks were approved by the bands and Robert Smith, and screen-printed at White Duck Editions in Bath.

“I did it to make a difference. We need to invest in the younger generation; they are our future, and for me, that’s what the Teenage Cancer Trust does. Their support for young people is incredible. I’m not sure I can run a marathon, but I can create, so I thought this would be a real positive – to create some art for an amazing cause, the ultimate power of healing, music and art,” adds Andy.