3 album covers in our archive
Behind the Covers currently documents 3 New Order album covers from 1981 to 1989. Read together, the entries show how the artwork changed from release to release, with each story identifying the designers, photographers, source material, and design decisions behind the sleeve.
Cover evolution
New Order's Technique cover centers on a brightly colored cherub garden ornament that Peter Saville spotted while browsing antique shops on London's Pimlico Road. Saville rented the statue for the shoot, turning an antique object into a vivid, deliberately excessive image for the band's 1989 album.
Peter Saville paired Henri Fantin-Latour's A Basket of Roses with a coded colour alphabet for New Order's Power, Corruption & Lies. The flowers replaced an abandoned 'dark prince' idea, and Factory ultimately secured the National Gallery's permission to reproduce the painting.
Peter Saville answered New Order's uncertain first album with an image from Italian Futurism: a 1932 Fortunato Depero design whose obsession with movement and speed suited a band trying to move beyond Joy Division.
