An incisive cultural commentator, a design superstar, a consistently unconventional, nomadic intellectual, a renaissance man. Saville's role as maverick outsider, in addition to his fluid negotiation between the traditionally separate fields of art, design, moving image, styling and directing, allows him a unique vantage point from which to critically observe contemporary visual culture, both in the worlds of fashion and music, and in the corporate arena.
Saville has contributed significantly to visual culture since getting a BA with honors 20 years ago from Manchester Polytechnic Faculty of Art & Design. Although Saville is a professional collaborator, most famously with Factory Records' impresario Tony Wilson, architect Ben Kelly, British photographers Trevor Key and Nick Knight, fashion art director Marc Ascoli and designers Brett Wickens and Howard Wakefield, he has also maintained his independence, whether it was during the seven years that he and Wickens ran Peter Saville Associates (1983-90), during the three as a partner at Pentagram (1990-93) or as a freelancer playing the various roles of stylist, typographer, design consultant or art director.
Saville has created award-winning advertising campaigns for fashion designers including Jil Sander, Martine Sitbon and Yohji Yamamoto. Also, Saville was the consultant art director to Christian Dior, collaborating with Nick Knight and John Galliano to create Dior's Winter '97 and Spring '98 campaigns. Saville has become noted for his ability to communicate the mood and subtleties of a collection, demonstrating an exquisite sense of the most effective way to communicate the designer's vision via the printed page.
Saville's name first became known when he helped set up Factory Records, the legendary record label in Manchester whose bands include Joy Division and New Order. The strong and enigmatic graphic identities, which he developed for the company, its bands and its club, The Hacienda were landmarks in British graphic design in the 1980s. The work led to commissions to design LP art for OMD, Ultravox, Roxy Music, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel and George Michael. Saville's newest LP designs include Suede, Pulp and Goldie.
Saville has also designed institutional identities for London's Whitechapel Art Gallery, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; the Ministry of Culture, France; Parco, Tokyo and designed on-screen identities for Channel One Television in Los Angeles. Saville created installations and an interactive guide for the Natural History Museum, London, in collaboration with architect David Chipperfield. As a consultant, Saville has advised businesses such as Mandarina Duck, the luggage specialists, about the way in which they develop and manage their visual identity. Saville has also helped Meire` und Meire` to develop the identity for the Smartcar, the joint venture between Mercedes-Benz and Swatch.
Saville's more recent work is a new and vital body of self-commissioned art entitled "Waste Paintings" it is the result of a process by which Saville digitally and deliberately "shreds" two decades' worth of his own work. The fodder for these startling "pixel paintings," manipulated in Photoshop, is a body of work that has been influential both in and beyond the graphic design fraternity. Saville's current projects include communications consultant for the Italian lighting company Flo's, the 3-D cover of Visionaire shot by Nick Knight, a coffee-table book for Nadia Auermann and the campaigns for Vivienne Westwood's 'Boudoir' fragrance and Sergio Rossi. Saville's latest venture with Nick Knight is an internet website titled 'Show', 'Show' is a multimedia exploration of visionary and contemporary artistic culture. 'Show' can be found at
www.show.uk.com.
