Behind the Covers
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“Peter Saville”

3 cover stories in our archive

Behind the Covers' archive includes 3 album covers documented under the "Peter Saville" design theme, spanning the 1980s, 1990s. These covers sit within the alternative, rock, electronic, punk tradition and feature work by Suede, New Order, Joy Division. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.

Coming Up by Suede — album cover art

Coming Up by Suede (1996)

Suede's Coming Up cover turned three models on a striped mattress into a fluorescent hallucination. Brett Anderson brought Peter Saville into the project; Saville and fashion photographer Nick Knight shaped the imagery, Howard Wakefield designed the sleeve, and digital paintbox work pushed the photograph toward the lurid, ambiguous glamour that matched Suede's brighter 1996 reinvention.

Label
Nude Records
Designer
Howard Wakefield
Photographer
Nick Knight
Genre
Alternative, Rock
Decade
1990s
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Movement by New Order — album cover art

Movement by New Order (1981)

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.

Label
Factory Records
Designer
Peter Saville and Grafica Industria
Genre
Electronic, Rock, Punk
Decade
1980s
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Closer by Joy Division — album cover art

Closer by Joy Division (1980)

A photograph of a Genoese tomb, chosen by Joy Division before Ian Curtis's death, became one of rock's most haunting covers. Peter Saville's classical design turned a modern record into an object that seemed to belong to another century.

Label
Factory Records
Designer
Peter Saville and Martyn Atkins
Photographer
Bernard Pierre Wolff
Genre
Rock, Alternative
Decade
1980s
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