Cuttings

DESIGN The Manchester tradition Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville were studying graphic design at Manchester Poly when punk hit the city, and both quickly became involved with the local music scene. Garrett worked with the Buzzcocks, later starting the design company Assorted Images, and Saville became art director at Factory before setting up his own company, PSA, in London. Together, they established a tradition of local designers working with local bands, shops and clubs continued now by Manchester-based teams Trevor Johnson / Tony Panas and Central Station Design. The Poly now has a reputation for turning out innovative designers — Arena's Ian Swift and our own Pat Glover are graduates, as was Dave Crow, who initiated the Poly magazine Fresh seen above

Anatomy of an artwork  Peter Saville's Blue Monday Make it new... Blue Monday in 1983 was the first single to establish New Order as a force, after the death of Ian Curtis had ended the band's previous incarnation as Joy Division. To match their new synth sound, Peter Saville created this groundbreaking sleeve. Ex machina... With Joy Division, Saville had dashed album art rules, omitting the title from Unknown Pleasures and using classical imagery with Closer. For Blue Monday, he looked to machine-age aesthetics, anticipating computer-led design. Ready to flop... The occult black sun imprinted at its centre, attended by the dash and dot, is still recognisable as the long-obsolete floppy disk. Writing code... The colour chart suggests new machine-led, colour-coded design. It's literally coded, too. Saville placed a colour wheel on the back of the album Power, Corruption & Lies that helps reveal the song's title. Grand design... The sleeves reportedly cost so much to

PERFECT STYLISTIC ATTITUDE Any fan of the following bands, will also be familiar with the work of the designer Peter Saville: Joy Division, New Order, Ultravox, Orchestral Manoeuvres. Since 1978 he's become one of the best known, and probably the best respected, record sleeve designers available. 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, New Order etc? Well, that's a rather wooly question. The first work I ever did for Factory was a poster (FAC1) 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 weeks 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 Die Stiljl. I was really into Jan Tschishold and Die Neue Typographic of t

Peter Saville on his album cover artwork https://www.theguardian.com/music/gallery/2011/may/29/joydivision-neworder Next month sees the release of Total , the first compilation to combine the back catalogues of Joy Division and New Order - who shared band members, a record label and a sleeve designer. Peter Saville was a co-founder of Factory Records and credits the label’s unique culture for providing him with a creative freedom on a par with its bands. "I had the opportunity to make the kind of objects I wanted to see in my life," says Saville, who went on to design the England football strip, art direct adverts for Dior and was creative director of the city of Manchester. Here, he talks us through his favourite designs for Joy Division and New Order sleeves Unknown Pleasures Joy Division (Factory, 1979) This was the first and only time that the band gave me something that they'd like for a cover. I went to see Rob Gretton, who managed them, and he gave me a fold