After finally catching up with the excellent Vaughan Oliver/23 Envelope monogram 'visceral pleasures' by Rick Poynor (think FAC 461 for 4AD if you're not familiar) a paragraph which compared Oliver's working influence to Peter Saville caught my eye:

"Oliver is a designer whose most characteristic work is about music. At their most expressive, his designs embody his intense emotional responses to his sensations as a listener. This is by no means always the case with designers of music graphics. Reid Miles, creator in the 1960s of many classic covers for the Blue Note jazz label, never had much enthusiasm for hard bop, even though fans regard his graphic rhythms as perfectly in sync with the music. Peter Saville, designer of sleeves for Factory Records, was engaged more by the subcultural, stylistic and fashion aspects of the post-punk milieu than by the music itself, and this detachment can be seen in the conceptual control of his designs. For Oliver, the connection with music is much more visceral and intimate. Music is a way of twisting the moment, leaving the mundane reality of the here and now, the world of bills on doormat, and attaining a more vital state of being beyond rational understanding, beyond the comfortable habits and orderly procedures of everyday life, where reality can be experienced anew, as if looking back from the other side."

In other words, Vaughan Oliver actually listened to the music but Peter Saville didn't.

Cheers Andrew @ Irk The Purists for the book.

Labels: art, books, design, graphic_design, Peter_Saville, Vaughan_Oliver

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