'UNKNOWN PLEASURE' SLEEVE DESIGN BY PETER SAVILLE

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  • Everyone has seen this design, whether it be on a sleeve cover, poster, t-shirt, or on countless articles that delve into album designs. 
  • The lead guitarist of the band approached Saville with this image and how they wanted to use it within the design for their "Unknown Pleasures" album. 
  • The image is a visualisation of the radio waves created by a pulsar, which is a neutron star that is created after a dying sun collapses in on itself. 
  • The image is an inverted version of the original image, printed on texted paper in India Ink
  • Today the image is still widely recognised and enjoyed, yet album designs today are being disregarded as a need for them narrows.

Twelve years later, another iconic album cover emerged, Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures designed by Peter Saville in 1979. The design is still widely used and has been seen globally by millions of people. The lead guitarist of the band approached Saville with an image (image 4) and wanted it to be a part of their album design. Said image was a visual recording of the radio waves created by a pulsar which in effect is  what happens when a neutron star is created after a dying sun has collapsed on itself (Grow, K. 2015).  Saville went on to invert the image and place it in the centre of the record sleeve, with no band name or album title which was an extremely calculated risk but led to high reward. No matter the circumstances, if a person sees this image they immediately associate it with Joy Division, almost as if it became their visual identity. Making this one of the most identifiable pieces of graphic design ever created, showing just how important the relationship between music and design is. 

I ended up removing this from my essay as it was not as relevant as my other case studies, however it is an important consideration for the practical project.



Grow, K. (2015) Joy Division’s ‘Unknown Pleasures’ Cover: The Science behind an Image. Rolling Stone. Available at: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/joy-divisions-unknown-pleasures-cover-the-science-behind-an-image-191126/ (Date accessed 9th November)




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