While clearly obsessed with the many cheaper looking off-shoot labels of the mid 80s, I am equally passionate about video fonts and logos in general.

A few years back I came across a video at a local car boot, but when I opened the box I was greeted by leads and instructions. This was no videotape. This was a video copy kit, allowing you to convert your beloved Betamax collection over to VHS, or back-up your wedding video to another (other memories are also welcome).

You might consider it odd to collect such obsolete material, but it’s not the connections or instructions i’m after, it’s the cover scans of the various box designs. Also, just why were these sent out in puffy video boxes? Seems strange considering no instructional tape ever accompanied the leads. Continue reading →

Following on from the video store and rental sleeve posts, I thought it would be best to set up a separate page for the various membership cards.

Continue reading →

There are so many different aspects to VHS that I love, and none more so than any connection to a video store. My local store was called Video Vision and is now an Indian restaurant. I occasionally still go there for a meal and request that we sit next to where the horror section once stood. I know it’s childish but I can still picture the tapes on the wall, and how the shop once looked in its prime.

With the fall of Blockbuster, the final nail in the movie rental store coffin, I was thinking of when all of those outlets are empty, what would be put in their place – More fast food chains? It also got me thinking of how future generations will grow up not knowing that our favourite place to visit on a Friday or Saturday night is now where they get their hair cut, or even eat.

Continue reading →

Something that concerns me quite deeply is the idea that my daughter is destined to grow up in a world that has no video stores. She will never get that feeling of walking into your local outlet, browsing the wonderful artwork on the shelves and selecting a movie to take home for that entire weekend.

So with that in mind, here is a glimpse into the past, a little look back at some of the rental sleeves from around the country.

Continue reading →

It’s no great secret that I have become increasingly more obsessed with the memories of my local rental store, Video Vision. The place that I would visit every Friday and Saturday night with my best friend at the time, and rent the most obscure titles. Obviously we were seriously under age, so his Mom would come along with us to get the tapes. We would spend an age in the horror section scanning the racks to find the most attractive box art, films which we knew would be terrible, but we didn’t care, the artwork did as it was intended and had us sold. Films like Lurkers, Frenchman’s Farm, Lucifer and Nights of Terror.

I find it hard to believe that my old place of worship is now a Curry house, and the horror section reduced to nothing more than a drinks bar. In memory of my old rental store i’ve been compiling a few pictures of other video stores that were based around the UK.