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Peter
Saville on...
...staying
at the front of design
"My work has been to satisfy me and in satisfying me, it proposed
an iconography of its time. Since my mid teens, I've always taken
in as much of the visual world around me and processed that information
and accessed where it is, where it's going and what's my take on
where it can go. It's a little like air traffic control, deciding
what you would like to come in next. You do things based on prediction
and then those things happen, and the first thing you think is 'I'm
clever, I'm almost godlike in determining the scheme of things.'
Then you remember that it was based on prediction, it was going
that way and you wanted to help it. You didn't make it go that way,
you just identified the way it was going. All it actually required
is the courage to follow your instinct and that can be scary. Right
at the beginning, I found that scary."
...the
influences on his early work
"I was looking at one body of work, Jan Tschichold, and I was
looking at late Tschichold, where there's this very strict neo-classicism,
and I was supposed to be looking at the front of the book at his
constructivist work and I kept on peaking at the back. Then I was
in London for the weekend and I picked up a book that was Philip
Johnson's proposals for the AT&T tower in New York, and on top
of a 650 foot skyscraper, he was proposing a broken pediment, a
classical ornamental finial to this skyscraper. I thought 'if Philip
Johnson can put a broken pediment on the top of a skyscraper, I
can use a bit of serif type!' It was postmodernism in architecture
and it was happening everywhere."
...the
movement of pop culture over the last few decades
"In between the 70s and the 90s, we did a cultural greatest
hits moment, and were able to admit that yes, we do like columns
actually, or we quite like flares after all and we like long hair
and we like short hair. The most interesting thing to happen with
pop culture in the period is that it has become pluralist. When
I was a teenager, there was dance music and there was rock music,
there were mods and there were rockers, and if you were one, forget
any leanings towards the other. The fabulous but overwhelming and
confusing thing about popular culture now is that we have a fusion
culture and it all coexists."
New
Order's Power, Corruption And Lies |
...dealing
with the pluralist culture
"There are some examples of irreverent juxtaposition in my
work. My favourite cover is Power, Corruption And Lies, and that
is an irreverent juxtaposition, but it's only stereo, it's not multi-channel,
and I find multi-channel fascinating but I feel a bit insecure with
it."
...being
honest in work
"It's very difficult being yourself, it's very difficult
just showing what you really think or feel in your work. We are
very contained by self consciousness and it takes remarkable courage
to just say I like this and I like that. Design is like professional
posing, it is considered and a little bit removed, you're helping
this abstract thing strike a particular pose. That's different to
just being truly yourself, because suddenly it's not abstract, it's
personal."
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In
a nutshell...
- The
Peter Saville Show is at Urbis from Jan 23
to Apr 18. Admission is £5.
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Peter
Saville talks about design
Powerhouse
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