The Peter Saville principle.
‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’
Adrian Shaughnessy had the tricky task of interviewing Saville. Growing up in Manchester in the 1960s, Saville went to art school to do what he enjoyed most. He was into punk and punk graphics, but yet also inspired by Jan Tschichold and other Modernist typographers, who influenced his first poster for The Factory, a music night in his local town.
When the Factory became Factory Records, he became the art director, designing their record covers. His cover for Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures, was ‘a cover I just wanted for myself’ and when he asked if he could leave off the name of the band and the title they agreed.
Shaughnessy pressed him to talk about the sleeves. Saville confessed that most of the time he didn’t know what he was doing in the early days.
He explained how he and his friend Malcolm Garrett (see ‘Malcolm, Peter . . . and Keith’, Eye no. 49 vol. 13), carved a place for themselves on the London graphic design scene – coming from the North, they felt they had more to prove.
Moving on to his brief period at Pentagram (see Reputations Eye no. 17 vol. 5), he maintained that what he learned in this time has been useful to him every day since then: there is so much more than ‘just designing’.
Controversially, for an audience full of designers working in the music industry he said: ‘No one should be designing record covers after the age of 30’, and ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they do not communicate anything, they have no purpose in that respect.’ Saville amused us with his directness – he was refreshingly opinionated.
Recent work includes ‘branding’ Manchester as an ‘Original Modern city’, and the logo for Kate Moss’s Topshop collection – an offer he couldn’t turn down when it came from Moss personally.
Saville didn’t let us down – it was a fantastic start to the D&AD 2009 President’s Lectures.
Extract from Dan Nadel’s review of Designed by Peter Saville.
March 13th, 2009 at 4:52 pm | by The YouWorkForThem Blog » No one should be designing record covers after the age of 30
[...] Peter Saville gave an ever so existentialistic talk at D&AD. eye magazine has the write-up here. Author: Stefan Kjartansson Section: Art, Graphic Design, Music Date: March 13th, 2009 [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 7:17 pm | by Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not …
[...] Read the rest here: Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not … [...]
March 13th, 2009 at 8:54 pm | by Matt St. Gelais' - on the internet, dude.
[...] ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’ via. [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 10:23 am | by fabrikade's blog :: Design and T-shirt links from 2009-03-09 to 2009-03-14 : fabrikade, wear.i.am - graphic t-shirt designs; streetwear from Singapore and foreign labels
[...] The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing…. [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 3:02 pm | by links for 2009-03-14
[...] Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate no… Great write-up of last night's Saville lecture (tags: eyemagazine D&AD petersaville) [...]
March 14th, 2009 at 6:09 pm | by James Kirkup
Some more photos up here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/iamjames/sets/72157615179064010/ - brilliant talk
March 16th, 2009 at 6:20 pm | by playmo
“No one should be designing record covers after the age of 30″
When you love musivc it’s for life
March 16th, 2009 at 7:26 pm | by Peter Saville : Michael Carter
[...] - Peter Saville [...]
March 16th, 2009 at 11:27 pm | by chris herring » Blog Archive » D&AD lecture: Peter Saville
[...] videos from the Peter Saville lecture on Vimeo - Mr Doobs Unknown Pleasures Flash visualizer - Eye Magazine article Peter Saville [...]
March 18th, 2009 at 2:47 pm | by pat Taylor
Kate Moss logotype is a winner!
March 18th, 2009 at 11:51 pm | by Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’ | Jeremy Wheat
[...] Eye blog » [...]
March 19th, 2009 at 2:37 pm | by Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’ « see and feel
[...] via Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate no…. [...]
March 19th, 2009 at 2:51 pm | by Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’ « see and feel
[...] Eye blog » The Peter Saville principle. ‘Music covers are not graphic design, they communicate nothing’ via blog.eyemagazine.com [...]
March 23rd, 2009 at 4:25 pm | by Linkheavy «
[...] “Music Covers Are Not Graphic Design. . .” says Peter Saville, in a recent interview. Read about it over on Eye Magazine’s blog. (via Design Observer) [...]
March 25th, 2009 at 2:57 pm | by Kenneth FitzGerald
It’s not a question of “daring” to question Saville’s “bald claim,” it’s that I have no idea what that claim means. Unless there was some expounding by Saville on what he means by “communicate” (and why LPs covers and/or graphic design overall should or should not do whatever that is) that’s gone unreported, there’s no story here. It’s a quip meant to maintain reputation buzz. Mission accomplished. Go about your business.
March 25th, 2009 at 7:23 pm | by KT
its the old story - do something dumb with enough style and everyone applauds . . . thats rocknroll
and graphic design
August 3rd, 2009 at 12:56 pm | by George
I agree that “Music covers are not not graphic design”, but i do not agree with “No one should be designing record covers after the age of 30″ .
October 3rd, 2009 at 8:08 am | by Kevin Blackburn
Having not attended the talk or heard the full version my opinion may be a little flawed. But isn’t the job of any piece of modern ‘commercial’ design to cut through the crap, attract any potential punter and, in the end, help make a sale? I suppose it depends largely on how you define ‘graphic design’…
October 20th, 2009 at 3:38 pm | by Music Selection and Design Outcomes | Hi. I'm Kervie!
[...] is also this blog entry about The Peter Saville Principle on record design, and it mentions that “Music covers are not graphic design, they do not communicate [...]
October 20th, 2009 at 4:12 pm | by Music Selection and Design Outcomes | ReadPyxl
[...] is also this blog entry about The Peter Saville Principle on record design, and it mentions that “Music covers are not graphic design, they do not communicate [...]
January 1st, 2010 at 1:38 am | by A compact gallery of progressive metal design: Justin Bartlett « Critical Terrain | image object environment
[...] despite assertions to the contrary (confusingly, by the very designers who paved the way, like Peter Saville). Even in the vaunted iTunes era, a band’s visual output—identity, standard and [...]