Factory Records was a Manchester based British independent record label, started in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus, having great bands like Joy Division, New Order and Happy Mondays under the label. I choose to speak about them because of the great impression they made on music and the record sleeve design industry, most notably record producer Martin Hannett and graphic designer Peter Saville. This creative team gave the label and the bands under it, a real personality and sound.
The main spine of their identity was that all the label's releases (both music and video) were given a catalogue number of the form FAC followed by a number, which featured. This numbering system was also applied to other Factory "productions", including posters (FAC 1 advertised a club night), which Saville was commissioned for. Saville has produced vast amounts of brilliant record sleeve work over the years, but two really stand out for me, Joy Divisions first album 'Unknown Pleasures' and their last album 'Closer'.
The Unknown Pleasures cover is one of my favourite record sleeves of all time, it beautifully captures the nature of Joy Divisions music in a perfectly fitting way. While Saville's album design for Closer, released shortly after Ian Curtis' suicide in May 1980, was controversial in its depiction of Christ's body entombed. But the design pre-dated Curtis' death, it seems almost too much of a coincidence.
Saville later produced the single cover for New Orders 'Blue Monday', which cost so much that Factory Records actually lost money on each copy sold, due to its die-cut sleeve, but who cared. Factory records was free of normal restraints, they were innovators and brave ones at that, although the single sleeve was eventually changed to a similar non die-cut design.
Then we have the Hacienda, home to some brilliant music, which often ran at huge losses due to the craze of ecstasy. But nevermind, it gave us The Stone Roses and Happy Mondays, and of course BEZ!!
So all in all, god bless Factory Records, Tony Wilson and Ian Curtis.
See Video,
Joy Division 'She's Lost Control'
