Peter Saville for Supreme

The austere impression of Peter Saville sleeve designs determine, for many people, their image of Factory Records. Here James Nice questions Saville on the influences, motives and restrictions that have shaped and also compromised, his work.

Any fan of bands such as Joy Division, New Order, Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark and Ultravox will also be familiar with the work of Peter Saville. Since 1978 he's become one of the best known, and probably best respected, record sleeve designers available.

JN: Why in the early days with Factory did you decide to work in the style of constructivism with bands such as Joy Division, Section 25, OMD and New Order?

PS: Well that's a rather wooly question. The first work I ever did for Factory was a poster (FAC 1) on which the Factory Sample was also based. It was certainly constructivist in style, though the sleeve for OMD's Electricity was more neo-classical. I was twenty two and in my last week's at college, and becoming aware of the great tradition of Twentieth century graphics, as well as certain schools such as the Russian constructivists, the Bauhaus and De Stijl. I was really into Jan Tschichold and Die Neue Typographie of the 1930s, which was exclusively typography and graphics and reflected the mood of the time. Thus my first studies were reflected in the sleeves of my first records.

JN: Did this relate directly to their/Factory's music, or were you working to a set brief?

PS: I was desperate for work other than college things, and was jealous of Malcolm Garrett working on Buzzcocks' covers. I approached Tony Wilson on hearing of the Factory club in Manchester and showed him my Tschichold book. He liked the idea. I hadn't heard any of the tracks on A Factory Sample before I did the cover, and the only one that really moved me was Digital by Joy Division. I was working to convey not the music but the mood, the sense of a new movement. The first Factory record I liked was Electricity, because of OMD's name and because I'd always liked Kraftwerk. For Unknown Pleasures, I was given an image by Joy Division, but on hearing the first thirty seconds I was stunned. It was obviously a very important record.

JN: How important is it for Factory to have very elaborate sleeves, and why should they? In the past Tony Wilson has simplified it to a penchant for 'nice sleeves' surely not true?

PS: To give the customer something different, with no concern for expense or selling the music on the strength of it.

JN: Why are you doing fewer sleeves for them now?

PS: I'm doing less for everyone, as I don't like doing record sleeves anymore. My original intention was to set up a design company proper, but Tony would ask for a design and give no brief or deadline, and it would lie on the shelf for months until we had a row about it. Basically we fell out. I still work with New Order as I'm close to them, and if Tony wants something special I'll do it.

JN: You said in a recent interview that your brief is usually wide open - are your designs ever rejected and for what reasons?

PS: Sometimes but it never reaches the design stage, just an idea. There's a lot of discussion beforehand, though my work is hard in relation to 'pop groups' as they have ideas but cannot technically articulate them - that's when I get out the books. In the old days, I should have turned more things down but it was like a compliment being ask to work. Even a really naff project is still a compliment. Now I turn most sleeve offers down.

JN: On what grounds would you turn a client down? Ultravox are surely 'bad art' in this respect, so is your continued association purely a financial one?

PS: Ultravox originally came to me with one song, Vienna, which I really liked and for two years they were a good vehicle for pretentious Peter Saville Associates ideas which wouldn't suit New Order or OMD. They never interfered, and if the budget ever went over the odds, they'd always pay when necessary. The stage set for the Quartet tour cost a fortune, and for a mainstream group to finance that is great. I don't like their music though, and they began to get fussy. I don't work for them now.

JN: Be honest how much do you charge?

PS: It differs. I obviously don't charge Section 25 as much as Wham!, but it's usually well over GBP 2,000. Wham! are good customers to have.

JN: Do you always try to relate a sleeve to the specific band or record? For example, Closer for Joy Division was very fitting, whereas the sleeve for The Strange Boutique by the Monochrome Set not so.

PS: In a way. Of the two you cite, Ian Curtis decided that the sleeve was the one for Closer, and it obviously, catches the whole thing. The Monochrome Set presented me with an image and I worked around it; though the music means nothing to me.

JN: Sleeves such as Power, Corruption and Lies, From The Hip and the newer OMD sleeves (i.e. the computer graphics) are all designs far removed from your previous styles and of different genres: how do you react to the accusations of dillettante-like hopping from style to style?

PS: They're absolutely true! but for me it's an educational process. Times change. There is, I think a stylistic similarity in their simplicity, arrangement and presentation. The colour codes simply look good, though they result in pretty hilarious attempts to de-code them. I see things and adapt them, but I hate to see this when no proper attempt at design is made - it means nothing, has no pattern.

JN: You said recently that you always credit other designers when using their ideas. Yet, sleeves such as Movement and Procession are directly taken from others but bear no credit bar your own. In effect, you're being paid for the work of others... defend!

PS: I'd not heard either of the two records at all, and New Order had no ideas, so they choose then straight from the book. I wanted to credit the artist, but they refused, so I just added the Graphica Industria moniker as a token gesture towards the Italian Futurists. Obviously I've not stuck to one style. But I can have sleeves from Roxy Music, New Order, Ultravox and OMD all released and in the shops at the same time, and yet all look different, whereas - say - Neville Brody couldn't. The Face as a magazine is absolutely him for example.

JN: Are you restricted by the economics involved in a lavish sleeve, especially given the present climate? Not everyone can afford something as grand as Section 25's Always Now.

PS: I don't really do over the top designs now anyway, it's not the right time for aesthetic reasons. When I first worked for Din Disc/Virgin after Factory it came as an immense shock that sleeves couldn't cost more than 40p. One design I had was for a black and white outer with a colour inner which was turned down immediately, as it would only be seen after the buyer took it home.

JN: Are designs ruined by 'outside agencies' in between leaving you and arriving or the racks?

PS: Sometimes, but a printer's problems are different. If you visit the factory for a half-hour then they're being careful, but as soon as you leave they're back to printing record sleeves again. I have to make a real nuisance of myself over Wham! and I'm actually banned from most major labels: ABC wanted me, but "I'm too much money and too much bloody trouble."

JN: Would you like your work to be seen as 'record sleeves' only, or as good designs in their own right, free of associations which might cheapen them?

PS: Well, I'm just not a rock n roll person anyway, though most people in the business love it. My sleeves are received better outside the business itself, such as OMD's Architecture & Morality. A great thing is that through association I can give ideas to kids: on OMD's Architecture & Morality tour I put together an archectural slide show, and to see 5,000 people stop, watch and applaud, was quite something.

JN: Does the 'art establishment' recognise you as it might, and see your present medium as a legitimate/serious art form?

PS: It seems to. If I give talks in art colleges, I expect to be given a hard time by tutors who really know their stuff, but in fact they appreciate the fact that I've turned people on to Tschichold, etc. I've also designed new interiors for galleries such as Fruitmarket in Edinburgh and the Whitechapel.

JN: Was the recent Riverside Studio exhibition (via Factory) the first of its kind for you?

PS: Some time ago there was an exhibition called 'Cover Versions' which was myself and about five others, and which went abroad. Riverside wasn't an exhibition as such - Tony just stole my 'new brutalism' quote for the publicity. All I did was four banners, displayed with The Durutti Column.

JN: Who are Peter Saville Associates exactly?

PS: Myself, obviously. Early on there was Martin Atkins, Ben Kelly, and then Brett Wickens. Also Trevor Key, plus Martha Ladly has helped on little bits (Martha Ladly of Martha And The Muffins, latterly The Associates). There's no-one at the moment as I don't want a company, as I originally did.

JN: You say you're now too old, and want to move away from musical areas...

PS: Well, I'm twenty nine and I just can't see the point any longer. If I ran PSA as a company I'd cease to be an artist, but would be surrounded by people cranking out things. I did think I'd like to work on corporate identity, i.e. advertising and packaging, but it isn't sufficiently motivating, I want to cause a stir and produce designs that match the times. But, those areas are only selling goods and not my statements. I now have to find an area for personal expression but one that I can also earn a living from! I'd like an institution, but you have to fight for these things. Graphics are not on a par with art, photography or fashion, but are more a service industry instead of direct purchase. What I'm doing, and want to do, just isn't a good idea at the moment!

James Nice, November 1984.

All contents Copyright © 1984 by James Nice/Glasgow University Magazine GUM

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