HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER SAVILLE!
Today we celebrate the birthday of the UK’s most famous graphic designer - Peter Saville. Saville’s work has expanded across the worlds of fashion, music, and art, and he remains a pivotal figure in graphic design and style culture. After founding the landmark independent record label Factory Records in 1979, he created what have become some of the most iconic album covers in existence for the likes of Joy Division and New Order. Saville helped our own Nick Knight set up SHOWstudio in 2000, was made creative director of the City of Manchester in 2004, and was also awarded the London Design Medal in 2013.
In honour of the British artist’s birthday, SHOWstudio looks at some of Saville’s artistic ventures, outside of his famous Factory Records sleeves.
An early venture into the realm of fashion was Saville’s collaboration with Umbro in 2010 to create the new England football kits. Featuring a fabric printed with small coloured crosses, the home strip was inspired by the increasing diversity of England, the design taking the patriotic St George’s cross and re-appropriating it in a variety of colours intending to represent the country’s diverse cultural makeup. The cross appears in the traditional red, blue and green of England’s three lions crest, with the addition of a striking purple made in combination of the three.
Saville is no stranger to the world of fashion logos, most recently known for his development of the Burberry monogram logo for Riccardo Tisci in 2018, and for updating the Calvin Klein logo for Raf Simons in 2017.
2013 saw Saville obliterate the Lacoste logo for a series of Holiday Collector polo shirts. After being told he could do anything except touch the signature crocodile, Saville rebelled by destroying the icon, shattering it digitally in 80 different abstract iterations, noting that, 'they still look like Lacoste shirts even if they don’t have a crocodile on them. It’s about requisitioning the mainstream to translate an idea that is not about selling.'
Venturing into the world of beverages, in 2016 Saville collaborated with the Tate Modern, adapting his graphic identity into a new Switch House beer can. Working with the Tate Design Studio, Saville produced a new silver packaging design featuring vibrant geometric artwork. The Pale Ale beer can mimics Saville’s work from earlier in the year, when he updated the Tate Modern art gallery’s graphic identity with a colourful model of the complex that included the new Herzog & de Meuron Switch House extension.
In late 2016, Saville designed a range of laboratory-style glassware for Manchester’s Museum of Science and Industry. Produced and etched in Northern England, the three glass flasks are etched with diagonal stripes evocative of the city. These lines not only liken to hazard road markings (referencing the city’s industrial heritage), but also of Manchester’s coat of arms, which features three diagonal stripes to represent its three rivers, and the graphic identity of legendary Manchester nightclub The Haçienda.
The latest venture by the graphic designer may come as a slight surprise to some, after it was announced in September 2019 that Saville had been the creative mind behind the Pornhub Awards trophies, creating a bright orange trophy based on the shape of sex hormones. Aiming to celebrate sexuality without making it a cliché, Saville chose to use the science of sexual attraction as his inspiration for the trophy’s form.
