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Peter Saville

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Peter Saville
Background information
Born 9 October 1955
Manchester, England
Occupation Art director, music engineer
Known for Design of record sleeves and CD covers.
Associated acts New Order
Joy Division
Designer

Peter Saville (born 9 October 1955 in Manchester) is an English art director based in London, whose work has included designs for Duran Duran.

Biography[]

Saville attended St Ambrose College, where he studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic (later Manchester Metropolitan University) from 1975 to 1978. He is famous for the design of record sleeves for Factory Records artists, most notably for Joy Division and New Order. Influenced by fellow student Malcolm Garrett, who had begun designing for the Manchester punk group, the Buzzcocks and later designing for Duran Duran which included record sleeves and tour programmes.

Saville entered the music scene after meeting Tony Wilson, the journalist and television presenter, whom he approached at a Patti Smith show in 1978. This resulted in Wilson's commissioning the first Factory Records poster (FAC 1). Saville became a partner of Factory Records along with Wilson, Rob Gretton and Alan Erasmus. In 1979 Saville moved from Manchester to London and became art director of the Virgin offshoot, DinDisc. He subsequently created a body of work which furthered his refined take on Modernism, working for artists such as Roxy Music, Wham!, Ultravox and Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and Duran Duran. This work included contributing to Duran Duran's "My Own Way" single sleeve with Malcolm Garrett. Saville founded the design agency Peter Saville Associates (still designing primarily for musical artists and record labels) before he was invited to close his office in 1990 to join the partner-owned Pentagram, one of the most respected and truly multidisciplinary design consultancies/agencies in the world.

In 1993 Saville left London and moved to Los Angeles to join ad agency Frankfurt Balkind with his longterm collaborator Brett Wickens. Saville soon returned to London. For a brief period, he founded The Apartment for the German advertising agency Meiré & Meiré from his modernist apartment in Mayfair that also doubled as the London offices of the agency. (The same apartment is depicted in the record sleeve of Pulp's album This Is Hardcore). The Apartment produced works for clients such as Mandarina Duck and Smart Car before he returned to freelance under his own name and consider other collaborations (including John Warwicker at the Soho based Tomato). In 1999 Saville moved to offices in Clerkenwell to re-start Peter Saville Associates (later renamed Saville Parris Wakefield).

In 2004 Saville became Creative Director of the city of Manchester (as a consultant).

A selection of credits[]

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