Nirvana

An oversized flannel shirt, hair in the eyes, an amp pushed into distortion. Nirvana turned unease into a style, and three decades on the Nirvana poster is still a fixture of slightly rebellious bedrooms. The band came out of Aberdeen, a small working-class town in Washington State about as far from glamour as you can get.

The images of grunge

The most famous is Nevermind (1991): a baby swimming underwater towards a dollar bill on a fishhook. Art director Robert Fisher gave the shoot to Kirk Weddle, a photographer who specialised in underwater work, in a Los Angeles swimming pool. Blue water, dancing light: an image both gentle and cruel, exactly on message.

Two years later In Utero (1993) showed a transparent anatomical mannequin with angel wings added, set against a pale background. Organs, bones, wings: odd, almost clinical, and astonishingly good at large size.

Then there is the yellow smiley with crossed-out eyes and a tongue sticking out. Scrawled, simple, recognisable from across a room, the slogan of grunge without a single word. Fans will also think of the lilies and candles of the acoustic set recorded for MTV in New York in 1993.

Hanging Nirvana without making it a museum

Grunge likes controlled mess. A Nevermind print above a cluttered desk, a guitar leaning on the wall, a string of fairy lights, and the room finds its mood. The smiley works best on a busy wall, mixed in with other posters.

Pair Nirvana with the decade's other icons in our 90s collection, or with the rough-edged prints in Gig Posters, which share that taped-to-the-wall spirit.

Each poster is printed in Tunisia and paid for on delivery. Come as you are.