Industrial designer Marek Reichman meets graphic designer Peter Saville

In this episode of Only Artists on BBC Radio 4, the industrial designer Marek Reichman meets the graphic artist and designer Peter Saville.

Marek Reichman has designed cars for some of the world's best-known marques and is currently chief creative officer at Aston Martin. Born in Sheffield, he graduated from Teesside University with a degree in industrial design and continued his studies in vehicle design at the Royal College of Art.

Peter Saville was in his mid-20s when he created renowned album covers for Factory Records' bands including Joy Division and New Order. Since then he has worked with leading fashion designers and musicians and was appointed creative director of the city of Manchester.

I really appreciate the work of Peter Saville (see my previous blog post about him and his work), and this radio conversation gave me a better understanding of the systems he uses in his design process.

I was particularly fascinated to hear about how he transformed the alphabet into a colour system.

It was his interest in computers that lead him to allocate a colour to the numbers 1-9.

Saville explained: “The colour alphabet came from the fact that I understood the floppy disk contained coded information and I wanted to impart the title in a coded form - therefore I converted the alphabet into a code using colours.”

e.g.

1 = A

2 = B

3 = C

24 (2 and 4) = X

25 (2 and 5) = Y

26 (2 and 6) = Z



This was then used for the Blue Monday album cover.



https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0006dqn

Only Artists - Writer Tracy Chevalier meets ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal

I came across a fascinating conversation between the writer Tracy Chevalier and the ceramicist and author Edmund de Waal when catching up on older episodes of the BBC Radio 4 programme, Only Artists.

Tracy Chevalier has written eight novels including the international best-seller Girl with a Pearl Earring. Her latest book 'A Single Thread' is set in Winchester Cathedral. 



Edmund de Waal is a ceramicist and author. His book 'The Hare with Amber Eyes' is a family biography about the loss and survival of art objects through time. His porcelain installations often respond to history, museum collections and archives.

 

The conversation took place sat at the potter's wheel in Edmund de Waal's studio. As de Waal demonstrated the process of making a small cup, he spoke of the importance of touch and the connection with the material.



Chevalier agreed and the two authors discussed how, when writing they use pen and paper as opposed to using a computer because their mind is connected to the hand which is connected to the paper, and they think at the pace of writing, not typing. Chevalier also noted how she likes to be able to see the 'road maps' of edits - the bits that she has crossed out, the mistakes and edits. Although 'track changes' does a similar job, she finds these hard to follow. Both shared the importance of feeling what they are doing without overworking it; for de Waal this is in clay, for Chevalier, this is in words. 

Chevalier spoke about the importance of authenticity, and remarked that she can't write about something well unless she has done it herself. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00094hg