Peter Saville
Born in 1955, Peter Saville is an English art director and graphic designer from Manchester, England. Peter Saville has had a huge influence in the graphic design and music industry over his career and is commonly known for his work on album covers and record sleeves for Factory Records. Saville studied graphic design in his hometown of Manchester, England at the Manchester Polytechnic from 1975 through to 1978. After becoming friends with Tony Wilson who was big in the music scene throughout this era, Saville began to become more involved in music and decided to start his own company in 1978 called Factory Records with Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson who he had befriended throughout his years studying in Manchester.[1]
Saville is best known for the work he has created for his company Factory Records which he founded in 1978 with Alan Erasmus and Tony Wilson, he is recognised by his designs of album covers and record sleeves most notably the work he created for the New Order and Joy Division album covers, one of his most famous designs feature the typeface the New Alphabet that was designed by Wim Crouwel who was a pioneer of the Swiss Design and Dutch Design movement throughout the mid 1900’s. Peter Saville was heavily inspired by artists from previous design movements and aimed to carry their ideas and philosophies into his own work, artists like Jan Tschichold who was the pioneer of the Golden Canons of Construction and the designer behind the visual identity of the Penguin Book publications was one of his most notable inspirations alongside many other designers.[2]
I have included some of Peter Saville’s work below to illustrate his influence on graphic design for the music industry.
References & Sources
- Famous Graphic Designers. 2021. Peter Saville | Biography, Designs and Facts. Available at: https://www.famousgraphicdesigners.org/peter-saville.
- Wikipedia. 2021. Peter Saville (graphic designer) – Wikipedia. Available at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Saville_(graphic_designer).