| Artist | Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark |
| Title | Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark |
| Label | Dindisc |
| Year | 1980 |
| Designer | Ben Kelly and Peter Saville |
| Music | Electronic popular music |
| Notes | We’re not generally focused upon archival releases, as we believe that there’s still a huge amount of brilliant recent work to feature. Having said that, there are some designs that demand to be featured and refuse to take no for an answer…Peter Saville is justly celebrated for his designs for Joy Division. However, his work for three of Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark’s first four albums is just as remarkable and we’ll be featuring it here in the next three posts. This is the cover for the first pressing of the group’s debut and it’s an absolutely thrilling design. The die-cut latticework is striking, both reducing and emphasising the sleeve’s physicality, while the vivacity of the blue and orange continues to promote a real sense of modernity 30 years later.
As with the Joy Division sleeves, Saville is clearly interested in reducing textual noise to a minimum, to which end all copy is hidden on one side of the inner sleeve border. The first image shows the front side with the sticker (surely imposed by the record company), but it’s the rear image that shows the design to best effect. Ben Kelly is co-credited with Saville, the specific nature of each designer’s contribution isn’t known. According to discogs, further pressings consisted of the following variations: Next: Architecture & Morality, then Dazzle Ships… |