Peter Saville

The now legendary cover designs for the Joy Division album Unknown Pleasures (1979) and the New Order single "Blue Monday" (1983) brought the Manchester graphic designer Peter Saville immediate international renown, with their somber yet lush Modernist edge. Saville was the cofounder of Factory Records, and was single-handedly responsible for its unique house style, so widely imitated, and so entirely Saville's own. Outside of the Factory stable he has produced covers for, among others, Patti Smith, Roxy Music, Wham!, Suede and Pulp, and has also collaborated on many architectural, fashion and interior design ventures, including the famous Manchester nightclub the Hacienda, and collaborations with Nick Knight, David Chippenfield and Stella McCartney. His sensibility combines unerring elegance with a remarkable ability to facture imagery that epitomizes and defines a cultural moment. Based on his solo exhibition at the Migros Museum in Zurich, which also traveled to the ICA London, this book surveys Saville's extensive archives for the first time. It was conceived and designed in close collaboration with Saville; as such, it is the first publication to be designed by the artist.

Born in Manchester (U.K.) in 1955, Peter Saville studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic. He found early inspiration in the elegantly ordered aesthetic of Jan Tschichold, the German-born book and type designer who was to become the chief propagandist for the New Typography. In 1979 he co-founded Factory Records (with Tony Wilson), and in the following year he co-designed the famous Hacienda nightclub.