Joy Division + -

Art Direction Peter Saville
Design Howard Wakefield
Hubble NGC 346 SMC Courtesy SpaceImages
Photography Prudence Cuming and Nick Turner

Designing Joy Division + -

In Peter Saville's book 'Estate 1-27' Michael Bracewell describes Saville's work with Factory Records and in particular Joy Division as the '…muniments of a crematorium in deep space.' Thus inspiring Saville to look towards the infinite qualities of the universe to capture the essence of a collection of Joy Division singles.

Tasked with the brief of 'deep space and nebulae', Howard Wakefield researched through the collection of Nasa imagery at SpaceImages. While tempted with a nebula called Factory, its name was too good to be true, for it didn't compare with the more expansive deep blue nebula of Hubble NGC 346 SMC. Peter Saville was keen to see how it could be transformed from being purely documentary, so suggested an inverted, monochrome version.

Factory Nebula

Hubble NGC 346 SMC

Of the 10 Joy Division singles, only 3 were ever released on 7 inch vinyl. There were 3 EPS, a flexi disc, a booklet, a 12 inch and even an LP. Compounding this, the artworks didn't exist in a state that could be used anymore, so the only option was to scan the sleeves.

However, scanning was not possible as each sleeve would need to be cropped to allow for printer's 'bleed', so Saville suggested a border. At which point Wakefield saw the potential of portraying the singles as, not only important musically, but  important in the history of music design. The design was as influential as the music and they should be both represented as such. The design concept was agreed - they should be portrayed as pieces in a gallery.

The sleeves were photographed and presented as moments in music and design history, backed with caption-style text on the reverse, allowing the music and the original sleeves to be the stars…