Peter Saville Estate traces the development of designer, artist and cultural observer Peter Saville, from his groundbreaking work for Factory Records in the late 1970s, though to his most recent explorations of art and design’s role in the highly commodified, visually hyper-literate early 21st century. Taking Saville’s 2005 exhibition at the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst Zürich as its starting point, the book features essays by Michael Bracewell and Heike Munder, alongside personal responses to Saville’s work from artists Slater Bradley, Liam Gillick, Steven Gontarski, Thomas Grünfeld, Robert Longo, Sarah Morris, Oliver Payne and Nick Relph, Sean Snyder, Wolfgang Tillmans, Kelley Walker and T.J. Wilcox.

Peter Saville Estate is not a conventional account of Saville’s professional practice, but collects together work, reference material and ephemera from his archive to form an illuminating and highly personal topography of the life and working methods of one of the most influential designers of the last 30 years.

Born in Manchester (U.K.) in 1955, Peter Saville studied graphic design at Manchester Polytechnic. He found early inspiration in the elegantly ordered aesthetic of Jan Tschichold, the German-born book and type designer who was to become the chief propagandist for the New Typography. In 1979 he co-founded Factory Records (with Tony Wilson), and in the following year he co-designed the famous Haçienda nightclub.