People, Places, Products and Praxis

James Brook 2009

 “And you, forgotten, your memories ravaged by all the consternations of two hemispheres, stranded in the Red Founded in 1978, factory records was a
Cellars of Pali-Kao, without music and without geography, no longer setting out for the hacienda where the roots seminal independent record label, based
think of the child and where the wine is finished off with fables from an old almanac. Now that’s finished. You’ll in manchester in the north of england.
never see the hacienda. It doesn’t exist.” Formed in the wake of punk, it released records by
bands such as Joy Division, New Order, A Certain
Christopher Gray Leaving the 20th Century Ratio, The Durutti Column, Happy Mondays,
(with text appropriated from the Formulary for a New Urbanism by Ivan Chtcheglov)
and Orchestral Manœuvres in the Dark. Like the
label 4AD Records, Factory used a creative team
– most notably record producer Martin Hannett
and graphic designer Peter Saville – which gave the
label, and the artists recording for it, a particular
sound and image. The label employed a unique
cataloguing system that gave a number not just to
its musical releases, but to artwork and other objects
and projects.
Factory Records began not with a record, but with a
poster: when recently-graduated graphic designer
Peter Saville approached Granada TV presenter Tony
Wilson to discuss sleeve designs for the nascent
Factory Records in 1978, Saville presented an idea
for a poster for the first four nights of the Factory
club that appropriated diverse sources including Jan
Tschichold’s ‘New Typography’, the colour scheme
of black and yellow of the UK’s National Car Parks
and a warning sign stolen from Manchester
Polytechnic’s workshop. He suggested the poster be
given Factory’s first catalogue number, fac 1. The
poster was delivered late, with several spelling
mistakes; Wilson paid him twenty Pounds, and a
new approach to pop music design was born.
Over the next fourteen years, Factory created and
sustained a visual profile that was admired and
2 INTRODUCTION
emulated worldwide, this programme, an archetype
of the succesful marriage of music and design, was
a product of Saville’s vision: “Factory became the
platform for me to propose how I thought popular
culture should be” he says.
“It was a fantastic idea to differentiate our little
cottage-industry record label by having sleeves that
were glossier, more expensive and more beautiful
than those of the multinationals” said Wilson in
2007, the year of his untimely death, “Great idea,
only we never had it. We just did what we wanted to
do. And then post-rationalised it.” This appropriation
of the Marxist idea of praxis was central to Factory’s
often idiosyncratic working methods.
Essentially, Factory was more than just a label – it
was a cultural institution. Not only did it produce
some of the most acclaimed records of the period it
also gave rise to some of the most stimulating
artwork and design of the late twentieth century.
With built projects such as The Haçienda it pushed
design further than any record label, offering the
public an opportunity to engage with design as never
before. For many of the post-punk generation
Factory became an aesthetic education; not only
were Factory followers introduced to the nuances of
design language but to cultural ideas such as
Situationism and praxis. Factory’s legacy still
resonates today, influencing a generation with a
blueprint to create, and to aspire for more out of life.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 3
This page, clockwise from top:
A Certain Ratio, detail from Fac 22, 1980: Jeremy Kerr,
Simon Topping, Peter Terrell, Donald Johnstone and
Martin Moscrop
A certain ratio are a post-punk band formed
in 1977, in manchester. The band’s name is taken
from the lyrics of Brian Eno’s song The True Wheel -
from the album Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy).
Originally inspired by Eno, Wire, The Velvet
Underground and punk, they soon added funk and
dance elements to their sound as they developed a
parallel enthusiasm for Parliament. The group’s
longest serving members have been Martin Moscrop
and Jeremy Kerr. Their sound was given propulsive
funk form by the arrival of drummer Donald
Johnson, who replaced a drum machine. Johnson
recalls “That was the thing that attracted me. The
whole point was that they were using the wrong
instruments to make the right rhythms. I wanted to
free them up, to start doing other things.”
The band began their career on Factory Records
and were managed by Tony Wilson. Their first
release on Factory was a 7-inch single All Night Party,
fac 5, which featured a sleeve designed by Peter
Saville. For the single, A Certain Ratio gave Saville
a selection of images to use, including the 1966
photograph of the controversial American comedian
and satirist Lenny Bruce found dead from a drug
overdose. The band, who were fans of Bruce, thought
that the image was suitable for the sleeve, given
Bruce’s lifestyle and the violent subtext of the song.
The subject matter led Saville to design a sleeve based
on Andy Warhol’s Death and Disaster series, in which
horrific images are used to comment on the de-
sensitizing effects of violence in the media. The other
side of the sleeve, as well as the record label itself,
featured another image chosen by the band: a still
4 A IS FOR A CERTAIN RATIO
of the actor Anthony Perkins in Alfred Hitchcock’s
1960 film, Psycho.
A Certain Ratio’s most well-known single is Shack
Up, facbn 1, which was the first release, in 1980, on
Factory Benelux, a collaboration between Factory
and Les Disques du Crépuscule – an independent
label based in Brussels. An underground hit in
New York, the success of Shack Up led to A Certain
Ratio’s first gigs at legendary New York clubs such
as the Danceteria and The Roxy. Shack Up had
originally been recorded in the 1970s by the group
Banbarra and was a Northern Soul/Funk favourite
in the UK. In Shack Up, A Certain Ratio melded
the two traditions – Punk and Northern Soul – of
their collective Manchester upbringing. One of
punk’s more funky products, Shack Up combines a
dancefloor groove, sly humour, and Northern post-
industrial alienation all in one go.
Continuing the USA connection, A Certain Ratio
went on to record their first studio album, To Each...,
fact 35, with Martin Hannett at Ears, New Jersey,
the album mixed funk, dub, percussion and
electronics and was instantly hailed as a classic.
Whilst at Factory, the band released five studio
albums and twelve singles; their last album, Force
fact 166, was released in November 1986 to positive
reviews but soon after, the band left Factory, and
eventually signed to the major label A&M.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 5

Clockwise from top:
Fac 73 New Order Blue Monday, 1983
Fact 75 New Order Power Corruption and Lies, 1983
Fac 93 New Order Confusion, 1983
6 B is for Blue Monday
At nearly seven-and-a-half minutes, blue
monday, fac 73, is one of the longest tracks
ever to chart in the uk. It is recognised as the
biggest selling 12-inch only single of all time, but
as Factory Records were not members of the British
Phonographic Industry association, it was not
eligible for an official gold disc.
The roots of this timeless electro classic lay in the
purchase of a brand new Emulator 1 sampling
keyboard costing £4,000 and a cache of favourite
records. According to Bernard Sumner “The
arrangement came from Dirty Talk by Klein &
MBO, the beat came from a track, Our Love off a
Donna Summer LP, there was a sample from
Radioactivity by Kraftwerk, and the general influence
on the style of the song was Sylvester’s You Make
Me Feel (Mighty Real).”
The song begins with a distinctive kick drum intro.
Eventually, Gillian Gilbert, fades in a sequencer
melody. According to band interviews in the video
NewOrderStory, she did so at the wrong time, so the
melody is out of sync with the beat; however, the
band considered it to be a happy accident that
contributed to the track’s charm. The verse section
features the song’s signature throbbing synth bass
line overlaid with Peter Hook’s bass guitar leads.
Blue Monday is an atypical hit song in that it does
not feature a standard verse-chorus structure: after a
lengthy introduction, the first and second verses are
contiguous and are separated from the third verse
only by a brief series of sound effects. A short
breakdown section follows the third verse, which
leads to an extended outro. The b-side, The Beach, is
an instrumental version of the a-side with added
studio effects.
It could be argued that Blue Monday is one of the
most important crossover tracks of the 1980s pop
music scene. Synthpop had been a major force in
British popular music for several years, but Blue
Monday is arguably the first British dance record to
exhibit an obvious influence from the New York club
scene, particularly the work of producers like Arthur
Baker (who collaborated on New Order’s follow-up
single Confusion, fac 93 and again on the single
Thieves Like Us, fac 103).
The single’s complicated die-cut sleeve (with silver
inner sleeve) was based on the Emulator’s 5-inch
floppy disk, epitomising its metronomic, proto-
techno feel. It was designed by Peter Saville and
allegedly cost so much to produce that Factory
Records actually lost money on each copy sold. The
sleeve was soon changed to a similar non-die-cut
design that would cost no more than a regular sleeve.
The sleeve does not display either the group name
nor song title. Instead the sleeve’s spine simply reads
‘fac seventy three’ and, on the front and back
cover, the legend ‘fac 73 blue monday and the
beach new order’ is represented in code by a series
of coloured blocks, the code is also employed on
Confusion, another New Order release from this time
period. The key enabling this to be deciphered was
printed on the back sleeve of the album, Power,
Corruption & Lies, fact 75.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 7

This page: A selection from Factory’s series of boxed cassettes,
released between 1984-1987
Opposite page: Fact 16c A Certain Ratio The Graveyard and The Ballroom, 1979
In 1979, factory released a certain ratio’s
debut album, the graveyard and the
ballroom, fact 16c. The PVC packaging that
housed the cassette was designed by Peter Saville
and is designed as a clutch bag or strapless purse,
in reference to the word ‘ballroom’ in the title. The
cases were made by an importer of thermoplastic
bags, an acquaintance of Saville’s, and came in
several different colours, including green and orange.
From 1984, always keen to offer something new and
interesting for the record-buying public, Factory
launched a series of boxed cassettes, designed by
Peter Saville Associates, for a limited section of its
roster. Individual board boxes housed a cassette tape
that sat within a black plastic tray accompanied
by miniature replicas of the original artwork. The
first of these releases was for New Order’s Low-life,
fact 100c; it contained a set of four postcards
of photographic portraits of the band, held in a
semi-transparent paper folder, with the information
for the album over-printed, in two colours.
These objects are another example of Factory’s
willingness to produce unique items that went
beyond normal expectations, and is also a reflection
of Factory’s interests in new formats: in 1985,
The Durutti Column released the first CD-only
popular music album with their Domo Arigato,
fact 144, live album; later, when the Factory back
catalogue was released on CD, a cardboard ‘car
carry case’ was included so that the owner could
take the CD without the bulky plastic ‘jewel’
case. Factory Records pioneered the use of Digital
Audio Tape as a commercial medium: in 1987,
The Durutti Column’s The Guitar and Other
Machines fact 204, became the first commercially
released pre-recorded Digital Audio Tape.

Twenty-two cassettes were released in the series

before Factory discontinued them in 1987. These
were originally designed to work as a set, with
each colour coded for the particular band or artist:
white for New Order, purple for Joy Division,
green for Section 25 etc. They instantaneously
became essential items for collectors; the rarest
boxes are Substance , fact 200c, by New Order
(which strangely seemed to be mainly available
through Woolworths), Educes Me, fact 190c, by
Wim Mertens and both releases by Section 25.

8 C IS FOR CASSET TES A FACTORY ALPHABET 9


This page: Fac 19 John Dowie It’s Hard to be an Egg, 1981
Opposite page: Fact 89 John Dowie Dowie, 1983
10 D IS FOR JOHN DOWIE
John dowie was one of the inaugural acts
on factory records. Dowie was born in 1950
in Birmingham and is a comedian, musician, and
writer. He began performing stand-up comedy
in 1969. In 1978 he contributed three comedic
songs to the very first Factory music release, A
Factory Sample, fac 2, along with Joy Division,
The Durutti Column, and Cabaret Voltaire. In
1981, a 7-inch single followed, It’s Hard to be an
Egg, fac 19, which Dowie described as “a flop.”
The single was announced eighteen months before
it appeared, and was recorded at Strawberry
Studios in Stockport with Martin Hannett and
Steve Hopkins (aka The Invisible Girls). “The
mix and most of the music was recorded after I’d
gone back to London, as if I were dead” joked
Dowie, “What’s the obverse of a tribute?”
The release has unusual packaging, even by Factory
standards: the disc is white vinyl with a ‘yolk’ printed
on the label, and is packaged in a clear plastic sleeve
with a real white feather. The feathers were sourced
from a local market by Alan Erasmus and were
glued on by hand. This novel package transformed
surreal comedy into an art object. Reviews were
positive, but Factory’s ‘first major assault on Radio
Two’ failed to ignite and sales were modest.
Dowie’s final Factory contribution was a VHS video,
fact 89, released in 1983 and entitled simply Dowie,
a recording of a live performance at the Edinburgh
fringe festival. The cover featured an illustration by
Ralph Steadman.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 11

Clockwise from top:
Fac 257 Electronic Getting Away With It, 1989
Fact 290 Electronic Electronic, 1991
Fac 328 Electronic Feel Every Beat, 1991
12 E IS FOR ELECTRONIC
Electronic were a ‘supergroup’ formed by
new order singer and guitarist bernard
sumner and ex-smiths guitarist johnny
marr. They co-wrote the majority of their output
between 1989 and 1998, collaborating with Neil
Tennant on three tracks in their early years, and
former Kraftwerk member Karl Bartos on nine
songs in 1995.
The two first met in 1984 when the Smiths
guitarist contributed to a Quando Quango track
that Sumner was producing. However, despite
achieving mainstream success with the singles
This Charming Man and What Difference Does It
Make? Sumner didn’t initially recognise Marr,
and both were surprised to discover that they
had several musical touchstones in common,
including New York dance music, early Rolling
Stones singles and Neil Young album tracks.
Electronic finally materialised in 1988, when the
New Order frontman suggested Marr add guitar
to a solo album he was planning – this was quickly
abandoned when the idea of joining forces for a
full-time group emerged. The band were inspired
by contemporary dance music like Italo house
and acts such as Technotronic (Sumner remixed
Technotronic’s Rockin’ Over the Beat single in 1990),
their initial concept was to release white label records
on Factory and remain an anonymous entity, in
contrast to their considerable reputations with
The Smiths and New Order. The track Lucky Bag
and the name Electronic itself are two vestiges of
this initial approach.
In 1989, when Pet Shop Boys singer Neil Tennant
heard of their budding partnership through sleeve
designer Mark Farrow he suggested a collaboration.
The fruits of this union became Getting Away
with It, fac 257, Electronic’s debut single which
was released in December 1989 and sold around a
quarter of a million copies. It was a Top 40 hit in
America the following spring, and after a support
slot for Depeche Mode in August 1990 their chances
of anonymity soon vanished. Instead, Sumner and
Marr took a more commercial direction, blending
synthesizers, guitars and analogue technology whilst
retaining the template of modern alternative rock.
As well as its fusion with rock and pop, Electronic
continued their interest in dance music by inviting
DJs to remix their singles and album tracks; this
was a trend that continued throughout their career.
The sleeve for Getting Away With It was designed by
Peter Saville Associates and is notable for the fact
that this was the first time Saville had used stock
photography for a sleeve, in this case, an image of
a tumbler of whiskey. The cover employs the visual
language of modern print advertising with the title
and name of the band positioned as a caption would
appear. This ironic selling of a ‘supergroup’ as a
product or commodity is interesting in the context
of Factory, given that when the label was established,
overblown 1970s supergroups such as Emerson
Lake and Palmer, were a prevailing trend that the
label – and punk in general – were reacting against.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 13
Reading about Music Digital print, 2009
Writing about Music Digital print, 2009

14 INTERPRETATIONS A FACTORY ALPHABET 15


Clockwise from top left:
Pet Shop Boys Actually, 1987
Pet Shop Boys Introspective, 1988
Fac 58 Stockholm Monsters Happy Ever After, 1982
DeConstruction logo, 1990
Haçienda fifteenth birthday poster, 1997
16 F IS FOR MARK FARROW
Mark farrow is a graphic designer, known
for his designs for sleeves of the pet shop
boys, spiritualized, 808 state, orbital, liza
minnelli, manic street preachers and
others. Like many designers servicing the
post-punk Manchester music scene, he began his
career as a music fan who got to know musicians
– in his case the Stockholm Monsters: in 1982, he
was commissioned to design the 7-inch single for this
new Factory signing. He made an exuberant
statement using mock-leather paper and foil stamp
printing, emulating the binding of an antiquarian
book. The single, Fairy Tales, fac 41, was available
in two colours, green and burgundy and established
his reputation at Factory and beyond.
Farrow went on to design several sleeves for Factory
including I Need Someone Tonight, fac 72, by A
Certain Ratio; The Durutti Column’s Another
Setting, fact 74; and Bad News Week, fac 157 by
Section 25. The fold-out sleeve with five spot-
colour printing for Happy Ever After, fac 58, by
Stockholm Monsters was the most expensive
to that date and Farrow recalls that he got a
“bollocking” from Tony Wilson about the cost.
Farrow’s long-term aim had been to design a
corporate identity for a record label. His chance
came through DeConstruction records set up by
Pete Hadfield and Haçienda DJ Mike Pickering. At
DeConstruction Farrow’s minimalist treatments
echoed the contemporaneously evolving house music
sound, which was defined by its deconstruction
of disco music. In his work for DeConstruction,
Farrow found a corporate rationale, partly born
out of low budgets – to the problem of packaging
‘faceless’, technology-led dance acts, using wittily-
sourced stock photography to create a collect-the-set,
brightly-coloured family of highly hip designs.
But it is for his work with the Pet Shop Boys that
Farrow is most associated, having defined the
graphic identity of the group for almost all of
their releases in a period of over twenty years. The
first Pet Shop Boys sleeve to be designed by Mark
Farrow was for the 12-inch remix of West End
Girls. Farrow says “I hated the original sleeve – the
fact that there were two different typefaces, one
of the typefaces had three different sizes in it, just
everything about it I loathed and detested. I had
the whole Factory ethic in my head. So the first
thing I did was strip all the type off it, and we just
had the coloured blocks and the background.”
In 1991, in an echo of Farrow’s initial collaboration
with the Pet Shop Boys, Farrow was commissioned
to design a sleeve for the 12-inch remix of
Electronic’s Get the Message, fac 287r. Farrow’s
sleeve bears no relationship to the original sleeve,
designed by Johnson/Panas, instead , Farrow
appropriates the style and iconography of
contemporary motor-cross bike racing graphics.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 17

This page, clockwise from top
Fac 511 And you forgotten Memorial event poster, 2004
Slaughter and the Dogs Cranked Up Really High, 1977
Gretton at the Factory Club
Opposite page: Rob Gretton
18 G IS FOR ROB GRET TON
Rob gretton was born in 1953 and grew
up on the post-war satellite estate
of wythenshawe, south of the city of
manchester and one of the largest council
housing estates in europe. Gretton was one
of a generation who found a way out through
either pop music or football and was best-known
as the eccentric manager of the bands Joy Division
and New Order. He was also a partner in Factory
Records, proprietor of the Rob’s Records label
and a co-founder, along with Tony Wilson, of The
Haçienda in Manchester. He was portrayed by Paddy
Considine in the 2002 film 24 Hour Party People,
which documented the rise and fall of Factory
Records, and by Toby Kebbell in the 2007 film
Control, a biopic of Joy Division singer Ian Curtis.
Gretton’s involvement with the Manchester scene
began when he contributed £200 to co-finance
Slaughter and the Dogs’ first single, the punk classic
Cranked Up Really High. Between 1996 and 1999,
Rob Gretton managed his last Manchester fledglings
Gabrielles Wish, signing them to his own label,
Rob’s Records. The dance-tinged label had scored a
hit in 1993 with Ain’t No Love (Ain’t No Use) by Sub
Sub featuring vocalist Melanie Williams.
A loyal supporter of Manchester City FC, he died
in May 1999 at age 46 as the result of a heart attack.
And you forgotten A Memorial Event for Rob Gretton
was held in the Ritz, Manchester on May 23 2004,
the event was given the Factory catalogue number,
fac 511 by Tony Wilson because “Rob would have
been 51 this year...”
A FACTORY ALPHABET 19
 Martin hannett was born in north
manchester in 1948. He first came to musical
attention when, as Martin Zero, he produced the
first independent punk record, the Buzzcocks’
Spiral Scratch EP. Under the same moniker he
produced early records by punk poet John Cooper
Clarke, whose Salford monotone was complemented
by drum machines, simple synthesiser motifs and
Hannett’s own bass playing. As Martin Zero,
Hannett appeared on Top of the Pops playing bass
on Jilted John’s eponymous single, which he also
produced.
Hannett was an original partner in Factory Records
with Tony Wilson and is best-known as the producer
who helped develop Joy Division’s recorded sound.
Hannett’s trademark production, which is most
apparent on Joy Division’s debut album Unknown
Pleasures, fact 10, and its follow-up, Closer, fact 25,
is sparse and eerie, complementing frontman Ian
Curtis’ baritone vocals.
Hannett’s meticulous production, heavily
influenced by dub, created a space at the heart of
Joy Division’s sound, pitting the band’s spartan,
jagged instrumentation against a spacey void, the
latter being created by adept studio manipulation.
For these purposes, Hannett often utilised looping
technology to treat musical notes with an array
of digital filters – in particular, delay units. His
techniques are especially prominent in regard to the
band’s drum and synth sounds, which use the echo
and digital reverb effects, the notes echoing and
reverberating through a spare sonic backdrop. Also
20 H IS FOR MARTIN HANNET T
evident from his dub influences was the mixing of
the bass and drums higher in the mix than usual,
and placing the other instruments further back.
As a producer, Hannett obsessed over drum
sounds, never being content until they completely
coincided with the sounds that he heard in
his head. He demanded clean and clear sound
separation not only for individual instruments,
but even for individual pieces of Joy Division and
New Order drummer Stephen Morris’s drumkit.
Morris recalls “Typically on tracks he considered
to be potential singles, he’d get me to play each
drum on its own to avoid any bleed-through
of sound.” He also reputedly had Morris set up
his kit on a first floor flat roof outside the fire
escape at Cargo Recording Studios, Rochdale.
Hannett worked with U2, Orchestral Manœuvres in
the Dark, Jilted John, World of Twist and others. He
worked briefly with New Order, and fellow-Factory
Records bands Stockholm Monsters and Happy
Mondays. A rift formed with Factory and he sued
them in 1982 over a financial dispute; the matter was
eventually settled out of court. At this point,
Hannett’s career had spiralled into decline due to his
heavy drinking and drug use, especially his use of
heroin. His weight doubled and he died of heart
failure in 1991 at the age of 42. Hannett is survived
by a wife, daughter and a son.
Opposite page: Martin Hannett in the studio
A FACTORY ALPHABET 21

Clockwise from top left:
Fact 316 I Fagiolini The Art of Monteverdi, 1991
Fact 236 Robin Williams, 1989
Fact 266 Steve Martland, 1989
I Fagiolini
I fagiolini is a british solo-voice
ensemble specialising in renaissance and
contemporary music. They released one album
on the Factory Classical label in 1990, The Art
of Monteverdi, fact 316, which was reviewed by
Stewart Maconie in the NME in January of the
following year: “Few Northside fans will be set
alight by I Fagiolini’s rendition of Monteverdi’s
secular works which is a pity, since its clean,
elegant lines are infinitely preferable for chilling
out to than Ambient House or that crap Enigma
single. I wouldn’t know a good Monteverdi from
a Swans b-side but it sounds terrific to me.”
The Factory Classical label was launched in 1989
with five albums by composer Steve Martland, the
Kreisler String Orchestra, the Duke String Quartet,
oboe player Robin Williams and pianist Rolf
Hind. Composers included Martland, Benjamin
Britten, Paul Hindemith, Francis Poulenc, Dmitri
Shostakovich, Michael Tippett, György Ligeti and
Elliott Carter. Releases continued until 1992 and
included albums by Graham Fitkin, vocal duo
Red Byrd, a recording of Erik Satie’s Socrate, Piers
Adams playing Handel’s Recorder Sonatas, Walter
Hus and further recordings both of Martland’s
compositions and of the composer playing Mozart.
John Metcalfe (the viola player for the Durutti
Column) was the project co-ordinator on the first
wave of releases on the Factory Classical label. He
says “My job title was misleading. I’d always had an
idea to do a classical label run by and for artists to
have a say in their repertoire, design, the way they
wanted to record etc and to do the more pop thing of
getting the audience to identify more closely with the
performer. I spoke to Bruce about it, he mentioned it
to Tony who said that Alan Erasmus had had a
similar idea a while ago but no one to implement it.
Wilson gave me carte blanche to do the whole thing.
I was a kid in a sweet shop. I chose the artists and
with them organised the recordings, editing etc. It
was important for the music to be twentieth century
with at least one British piece on each CD – the
point being that you didn’t have to have a world cup
or a shit disco beat over the top or another bollocks
version of Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik to make
excuses for classical music to an already patronised
and assumed dumbed-down audience. Beyond that
the musicians could do what they liked. I was proud
of it – it was one of the first attempts at getting more
control into the hands of the musicians and saying
any one who wants to do it can.”
Designed by Peter Saville Associates, the series was
to have its own distinctive house style within the
Factory catalogue. Saville looked at classical labels
Deutsche Grammophon and ECM for the visual
codes and packaging of this genre. There was a
conscious desire to package the artists in a
contemporary manner that placed the emphasis on
the performers. Factory had previously packaged
pop records in the fashion of classical records, they
were now doing the inverse: presenting classical
music as pop.

22 I IS FOR I FAGIOLINI A FACTORY ALPHABET 23

 Joy division formed in 1976 in salford,
greater manchester. Originally named Warsaw,
the band consisted of Ian Curtis (vocals and
occasional guitar), Bernard Sumner (guitar and
keyboards), Peter Hook (bass guitar and backing
vocals) and Stephen Morris (drums and percussion).
Producer Martin Hannett contributed significantly
to the band’s sound on record – though the band
initially disliked the ‘spacious, atmospheric sound’
of Hannett’s production which did not reflect their
more aggressive live sound.
Although inspired by the energy of punk, Joy
Division rapidly evolved from their initial punk
rock influences, to develop a sound and style that
pioneered the post-punk movement of the late
seventies. Joy Division’s debut album, Unknown
Pleasures, fact 10, was released in 1979 on Factory
Records, drawing critical acclaim from the British
press. Reviewing the album for Melody Maker,
writer Jon Savage called Unknown Pleasures an
“opaque manifesto” and declared “(leaving) the
twentieth century is difficult; most people prefer
to go back and nostalgize, Oh boy. Joy Division at
least set a course in the present with contrails for
the future—perhaps you can’t ask for much more.
Indeed, Unknown Pleasures may very well be one of
the best, white, English, debut LPs of the year”
Joy Division performed on Granada TV in
July 1979, and made their only nationwide TV
appearance in September on BBC2’s Something
Else. They supported the Buzzcocks in a 24-venue
UK tour that began that October, which allowed
24 J IS FOR JOY DIVISION
the band to quit their regular jobs. The non-
album single Transmission, fac 13, was released in
November. Despite the band’s growing success,
vocalist Ian Curtis was beset with depression and
personal difficulties, including a dissolving marriage
and his diagnosis with epilepsy. Curtis found it
increasingly difficult to perform at live concerts,
and often had seizures during performances. Words
and images such as ‘coldness, pressure, darkness,
crisis, failure, collapse, loss of control’ re-occur
in Curtis’s lyrics. In 1979, NME journalist Paul
Rambali wrote “The themes of Joy Division’s music
are sorrowful, painful, and sometimes deeply sad.”
In May 1980, on the eve of the band’s first US tour,
Curtis, overwhelmed with depression, committed
suicide. In 1980, Joy Division’s posthumously
released second album, Closer, fact 25, and the
single Love Will Tear Us Apart, fac 23, became the
band’s highest charting releases. In 1982 Factory
released a compilation of previously unreleased
Joy Division material, Still, fact 40. The hessian-
covered sleeve, designed by Peter Saville/Grafica
Industria, with its austere, block-printed lettering
in Copperplate Gothic, had a simplicity that aims
at longevity – the eternal. The release of Still was
seen as a fitting conclusion – and memorial – to Joy
Division, whose remaining members went on to
form New Order.
Opposite page, clockwise from top:
Fact 40 Joy Division Still, 1982
Fac 23 Joy Division Love Will Tear Us Apart, 1980
Fact 25 Closer, 1980
A FACTORY ALPHABET 25
 Ben kelly is an interior designer based
in london, initially working within the
fields of retail and leisure. He established his
reputation producing innovative spaces including
three seminal buildings for Factory Records: the
legendary night-club The Haçienda, fac 51; a
continental-style bar Dry, fac 201; and the Factory
headquarters, fac 251, in Charles Street.
For The Haçienda, his first project for Factory,
opened in May 1982, Kelly created a stark three-
dimensional version of Factory Records’ visual
aesthetic. The cavernous space was painted in blue
and grey tones with an emphasis on the diagonal and
vertical, with ‘hazard’ stripes painted on columns.
The space was both flexible and dynamic with visual
compositions of colour and texture everywhere.
Directional and warning markings created an
inside/outside tension – bollards and cats-eyes
demarcated the dance-floor. A set of enigmatic
codes allowed patrons to engage in design as
never before: neon bar signs referenced notorious
British spies and from outside, the only clue to
what lay within was the granite nameplate with
the hand-carved legend ‘fac 51 the haçienda’,
inlaid with silver leaf and red enamel paint.
After the success of The Haçienda, Factory
Communications became unofficial figureheads
for the regeneration of Manchester’s city centre. A
frequent request from fans and patrons was for a
place to go prior to clubbing, and so Dry 201 was
conceived, opening in July 1989. Sited in a vast,
steel-framed building on Oldham Street and
26 K IS FOR BEN KELLY
occupying the entire ground floor, Dry 201
boasted a 24 metres bar of slate and steel – the
longest in Manchester. The design contrasted
old and new with ‘found objects’, including a red
plaster curtain – a hint of the bar’s previous life
as a furniture warehouse – playing a theatrical
part in an otherwise functional scheme.
The Factory headquarters, fac 251, opened in
1990, were located in a disused textile warehouse
on another run-down site in central Manchester.
Despite the structure being virtually rebuilt, the
original brickwork was retained and was boldly
featured in the design. A full-height entrance
with raised lintel, a bespoke metal gate and Kelly’s
trademark glazed bricks visually connected the
dedicated functions of each floor: warehouse, office,
boardroom. Original features were juxtaposed
with contemporary and appropriated materials:
floorboards were recycled as wall panelling,
I-beams were saturated with paint, while glazed,
industrial bricks and blue glass added planes of
intense colour. Most dramatic of all, the zinc-clad
staircase bulkhead emerged into the top-floor
boardroom like an oversized industrial conveyor
belt. The building was awarded first place in
the 1990 Pantone European Colour Awards for
use of colour in architectural/interior design.
Opposite page
Top: Fac 51 The Haçienda
Centre: Dry 201
Bottom: Fac 251 The Factory Headquarters
A FACTORY ALPHABET 27

Clockwise from top left:
Fact 100 New Order Low-life, 1985
Front cover: Steven Morris
Inner sleeve: Bernard Sumner
Inner sleeve: Peter Hook
Back cover: Gillian Gilbert
28 L IS FOR LOW-LIFE
In may 1985, new order released their
third studio album, low-life, fact 100. One
of the most acclaimed records of the post-punk era,
it marked the point where the band’s fusion of rock
and electronics became virtually seamless. As the
band became more accessible – even chart-friendly
– New Order’s sound and stark image continued to
evolve, setting a template that the band would
follow for the rest of their career.
The most obvious progression in Low-life is the
songs. In previous releases, New Order had
weaved instrumental experiments amongst
the more conventional tracks: Low-life is more
flowing, more continual, and makes a broader
statement. When boiled down to its essence, that
statement is that electronic-based dance music
doesn’t have to be cold, distant, or robotic. With
Low-life, New Order began to stake out two
emotive territories – the crowded dancefloor and
the lonely, isolated bedroom. Songs written from
these disparate points of view seamlessly meld
together, reinventing the band as a newly-complex
creature, and pushing Low-life into territories only
hinted at in the first two New Order albums.
The album’s sleeve, designed by Peter Saville, is
the only New Order release to feature photographs
of the band members on its sleeve. After some
nudging by the band’s new US record company
(they had recently signed to Warner Bros) to make
themselves more accessible and give the band a ‘face’,
New Order responded with a cover that consists
of nothing but faces. A photographic portrait – by
long-time Saville collaborator Trevor Key – of the
drummer/keyboardist Stephen Morris is on the front
cover and keyboardist Gillian Gilbert is on the back;
the inside sleeve featured two more close-ups – of
vocalist Bernard Sumner and bassist Peter Hook –
and no information. Information such as the band
name, song titles, catalogue number and album
title is contained on an almost disposable semi-
transparent tracing paper sleeve that wraps around
the main sleeve with typography that is a direct
quotation of Josef-Müller Brockmann’s Der Film
poster of 1960. For the typography, Saville used the
1928 font Neuzeit. He says: “I used Neuzeit because
I felt ‘new time’.” At that particular moment, Saville’s
use of Neuzeit on Low-life was shocking – and
groundbreaking – it also represented the beginning
of Saville’s move away from the appropriation that
had informed his previous work.
The album was preceded by the release of the
full-length version of The Perfect Kiss, fac 123, as
a 12-inch single. Atypically for New Order, who
had never included a single on an album before, an
edited version of The Perfect Kiss also appears on
Low-life. The track is said to be about the death of
Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis, and the words
seem to bear this out – ‘pretending not to see his gun
/ I said let’s go out and have some fun’. Yet instead of
a funeral dirge, The Perfect Kiss is a full-on, hands-
in-the-air dance track, complete with burping frog
sound effects, cowbells and handclaps. This meshing
of disparate emotions, which was once described as
‘tears on the dancefloor’, is one of the factors that
makes Low-life such a compelling record.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 29
Asperger’s Lullaby Digital print, 2009
Colours Digital print, 2009

30 INTERPRETATIONS A FACTORY ALPHABET 31

 Clockwise from top left:
Halluçienda poster, Julian Morey, 1991
Fac 232 Happy Mondays Wrote for Luck, 1989
The Haçienda
Fac 242 Happy Mondays Madchester Rave On, 1989
Madchester was an alternative rock genre
that developed in manchester towards the
end of the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
The music that emerged from the scene mixed indie
rock, psychedelic rock and dance music. Artists
associated with the scene included The Stone Roses,
the Happy Mondays, the Inspiral Carpets, 808
State, James, The Charlatans, A Guy Called Gerald
and others. At that time, The Haçienda was a major
catalyst for the distinctive musical ethos in the city
that was called the ‘Second Summer of Love’.
The Haçienda opened in May 1982, for the first few
years of its life it played predominantly indie music
– and was mainly empty – but gradually began
featuring more disco, hip-hop and electro; in this
respect, the club enjoyed a relationship of mutual
influence with its part-owners New Order as the
band became immersed in the New York club scene.
In 1986, The Haçienda became the first club in the
UK to take house music seriously with the opening
of Nude night on Fridays. The night quickly became
legendary, and helped to turn around the reputation
and fortunes of the club, which went from making a
consistent loss to being full every night of the week
by early 1987.
conquered the consciousness of the country, with
four of the defining singles of the movement being
released: Move by the Inspiral Carpets, Pacific by 808
State, the Madchester Rave On EP, fac 242, by the
Happy Mondays and Fools Gold/What the World is
Waiting For by The Stone Roses. The Happy
Mondays record, featuring the lead track Hallelujah!,
featured the term ‘Madchester’ on its sleeve, which
was designed by Central Station Design.
The Madchester scene was groundbreaking in
the way it brought together dance music and
alternative rock. In the 1990s, this became a
commonplace formula, found frequently in even
the most commercial music. Although not totally
a Factory phenomena, the roots of the scene in The
Haçienda, the dominance of the scene by Factory
band the Happy Mondays, and the visual identity
created by Factory designers Central Station –
which became ubiquitous on t-shirts the UK
over – put Factory at the centre of this brief-lived
scene that re-invigorated the fortunes of both the
city of Manchester and of Factory Records.

The Happy Mondays were formed in Salford in 1985

and were signed to Factory Records. In October 1988
they released the single Wrote for Luck, fac 212,
which, although commercially not a hit, was
recognised as a significant record nationally within
the indie and dance communities respectively. By the
following November, Madchester seemed to have

32 M IS FOR MADCHESTER A FACTORY ALPHABET 33

 Clockwise from top left:
Fact 200 New Order Substance, 1987
Fact 275 New Order Technique, 1989
Fac 183 New Order True Faith, 1987
Fac 193 New Order Touched by the Hand of God, 1987
Inner sleeve and front cover
34 N IS FOR NEW ORDER
New order melded post-punk and
electronic dance music to become one of
the most critically-acclaimed bands of
the 1980s. Although shadowed by the legacy of
Joy Division in their first years, their immersion
in the New York City club scene of the early 1980s
introduced them to dance music. New Order was
Factory’s flagship band, and their minimalist album
sleeves and non-image reflected the label’s aesthetic
of doing whatever the relevant parties wanted to do,
including New Order not wanting to put singles
onto the albums.
New Order’s music treads a fine line between rock
and dance, which can be seen on key tracks such as
Temptation, fac 63 and True Faith, fac 93. They have
heavily influenced techno, and were themselves
influenced by the likes of Kraftwerk, Cabaret
Voltaire and Giorgio Moroder, and they have also
significantly influenced electro, freestyle and house.
Bassist Peter Hook contributed to New Order’s
sound by developing an idiosyncratic bass guitar
technique. He often used the bass as a lead
instrument, playing melodies on the high strings
with a signature heavy chorus effect, leaving the
‘actual’ basslines to keyboards or sequencers – this
tension between ‘natural’ instruments and
electronics being a defining characteristic of the
New Order sound.
New Order album covers were all designed by Peter
Saville, rarely showing the band members or even
providing basic information such as the band name
or the title of the release. Song names were often
hidden within the shrink wrapped package, either
on the disc itself or on an inconspicuous part of
an inner sleeve, or in a cryptic colour code. Saville
said his intention was to sell the band as a “mass-
produced secret” of sorts, and that the minimalist
style was enough to allow fans to identify the band’s
products without explicit labeling. Also adding to
this air of mystery is the fact that many New Order
song titles have nothing to do with the lyrics. In
some cases, songs with normal titles appear to have
had their titles swapped with other songs. Other
song titles such as Thieves Like Us, and Cries and
Whispers were taken from the titles of old movies.
From 1981 to 1989 New Order recorded five studio
albums for Factory, these albums were supplemented
by non-album singles, 12-inch remixes, b-sides and
a career-spanning compilation album, Substance,
fact 200. New Order’s output was not marketed
in a conventional manner: releases would appear in
the stores with little announcements or advertising
and limited press coverage (Factory, famously, never
answered their phone). This changed with the release
of Technique, fact 275, which, untypically, had a
marketing campaign, that featured, for the first time,
billboard advertising. The campaign was given its
own catalogue number, fac 271. A final album for
Factory was scheduled for release as fact 300, but
in 1992 Factory declared bankruptcy and the album
was eventually released as Republic on New Order’s
new label, the paradoxically-named London Records.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 35
 Octavo/8vo were a british graphic design
company founded in 1984 by mark holt,
simon johnston and hamish muir. During
their time working together they designed and
produced some of the UK’s most exciting graphic
design. They also published a series of typographic
journals called Octavo, in which Michael Burke
was invited to be co-editor and an associate of
the studio. Preferring the term ‘visual engineers’
to designers, 8vo largely practiced a typographic-
led form of communication; much of their work
was produced using pre-digital tools and often
utilised techniques of rendering the typographic
content in camera, offering a multi-layered reading
experience and enabling them to keep a tighter
control over the finished product. A good example
of this working process is the collaged artwork for
The Durutti Column’s Circuses and Bread, fbn
36, which was shot on 8 x 10-inch transparency
and supplied directly to the printer in Belgium.
Talking about their experience of working for
Factory, Mark Holt and Hamish Muir have
said “A remarkable thing about Factory was the
complete creative freedom they gave their designers.
Throughout the period of our working relationship,
they never interfered with design (except once
rejecting a complete job at the final proof stage
– The Durutti Column’s Vini Reilly, fact 244).
Something along the lines of ‘music is our bag,
graphics is yours’. They were happy to see designs for
the first time when they were delivered, printed and
finished. Scary indeed – the weight of expectation
was immense. But this working relationship brought
about some of our best work. We designed each job
knowing there could be no excuses, striving to make
the next job better than the one before.” Years later,
Wilson referred to 8vo as The Durutti Column’s
“Graphic Magicians.”

Clockwise from top left: 8vo produced the artwork for many Factory sleeves
Octavo Issue 4, 1987
and promotional material and were an integral part
Octavo Issue 5, 1988
Fact 274 The Durutti Column Obey the Time, 1990 of the Factory design family. Principally designing
Haçienda seventh birthday poster, 1989 for label stalwart The Durutti Column, 8vo
produced sleeves for releases including Say What
You Mean, Mean What You Say, fac 114; Domo
Arigato, fact 144; The Guitar and Other Machines,
fact 204; and Obey the Time, fact 274. 8vo also
created some of the legendary Haçienda birthday
posters, whilst still finding time to set the tone for
late 1980s design in the United Kingdom before
they disbanded in 2001.

36 O IS FOR OCTAVO A FACTORY ALPHABET 37

 Praxis is the process by which a theory,
lesson, or skill is enacted or practiced. In
Ancient Greek the word praxis referred to activity
engaged in by free men. Aristotle held that there
were three basic activities of man: theoria, poiesis
and praxis. Three types of knowledge corresponded
to these three kinds of activity: theoretical, to which
the end goal was truth; poietical, to which the end
goal was production; and practical, to which the end
goal was action. Aristotle further divided practical
knowledge into ethics, economics and politics.
He also distinguished between eupraxia (good
praxis) and dyspraxia (bad praxis or misfortune).
The concept of praxis is important in Marxist
thought. In fact, philosophy of praxis was the name
Clockwise from top left: given to Marxism by nineteenth century socialist
Karl Marx
Antonio Labriola. Marx himself stated in his
Antonio Labriola
Tony Wilson Theses on Feuerbach that “philosophers have only
Aristotle interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to
György Lukács change it.” Simply put, Marx felt that philosophy’s
Paulo Freire
validity was in how it informed action.
As used by Brazilian educator and theorist of critical
pedagogy Paulo Freire, praxis is a synthesis of theory
and practice in which each informs the other. Praxis
is also a dominant theme in the political philosophy
of Helmut Fleisher.
In the Channel Four television documentary New
Order: Play At Home, Factory Records owner Tony
Wilson describes praxis as “Doing something
because you have the urge to do it, inventing the
reasons later.” Elsewhere, Wilson has been quoted as
saying “You learn why you do something by doing
it. The Theory of Independence was discovered in
the act of putting out your own records, doing very
well, being friends with your artists and not ripping
them off. And by 1981, we were all doing it.” Which
perfectly sums up the Factory ethos.

Hungarian Marxist philosopher and literary critic

Georg (or György) Lukács held that the task of
political organisation is to establish professional
discipline over everyday political praxis, consciously
designing the form of mediation best suited to clear
interactions between theory and practice.

38 P IS FOR PRA XIS A FACTORY ALPHABET 39

 Released by factory records in december
1980, a factory quartet, fact 24, was a double
lp with a cover price of ‘five guineas’. Each
of the four sides was devoted to a Factory artist. Disc
one featured three tracks by The Durutti Column
and seven tracks by Kevin Hewick whilst disc two
featured four tracks by Blurt and three tracks by
Royal Family and The Poor. The sleeve was designed
by Peter Saville. The runout grooves on each of the
four sides read: side a: ‘for who it says’, side b:
‘yip yip yip’, side c: ‘n.a.r.g’., side d: ‘the mode of
production etc.’ The sleeve was designed by Tony
Wilson, based around a set of Polaroid photographs,
also taken by Tony Wilson. The sleeve was embossed
to represent the borders of the Polaroid images.
Factory’s first recorded release was A Factory Sample,
fac 2, a double 7-inch EP featuring tracks by Joy
Division, The Durutti Column, John Dowie and
Cabaret Voltaire. The cover was designed by Peter
Saville who used a motif that had been sourced from
a leaflet on industrial standards, it was printed in
silver and black in an edition of 5,000. Tony Wilson
suggested the plastic-sealed gatefold format, which
was inspired by record packaging from the Far
East. The single came with a set of four stickers that
represented each of the bands. A Factory Sample and
the later A Factory Quartet announced a standard of
detail for Factory releases that went beyond normal
expectations and would set the foundations for the
development of the visual language that would come
to define Factory products.
40 Q IS FOR A FACTORY QUARTET
A hand-typed press release, for A Factory
Quartet, from the year of release, reads:
‘As yet untitled. Basically, it’s another
Factory Sample, only this time a double 10"
featuring 4 bands / 15 minutes each.
1. The Royal Family.
A remarkable S.I. influenced outfit from
Liverpool who, with sing along numbers like
“Vanneigem Mix,” rose such comments as;
‘They show The Gang of Four to be the bubble
gum band we always thought they were.’
– R. Boone.
2. Blurt.
Sax based dance band from Stroud –
Jesus Christ Stroud! Fronted by former
anarcho beat poet – reformed.
3. The Durutti Column.
An extended piece being prepared by Vinny
Reilly, Stephen Hopkins and Mr. Hannett.
4. Kevin Hewick.
Kid comes from Leicester. Writes singles
about hay-stacks and finding needles, and
apart from the fact that he likes Sylvia Plath
and Clem Burke, he has a lot going for him.
Interested in frail specifics, yip, yip, yip’.
Opposite page: Fact 24 A Factory Quartet, 1980
A FACTORY ALPHABET 41
 The durutti column took their name
from spanish revolutionary buenaventura
durruti. Another inspiration for the name of
the group was Le Retour de la Colonne Durutti,
which was a 4-page Situationist comic by Andre
Bertrand, given away at Strasbourg University in
October 1966. The image of the two Situationist
cowboys from Le Retour de la Colonne Durutti
was also used, in a slightly modified version, on
a poster, fac 3.11, given away to members of the
now defunct ‘Durutti Database’.
Centred around Vini Reilly, a classically-trained
pianist and virtuoso guitarist, the then five-piece
band recorded two tracks for A Factory Sample,
fac 2, the first music release on Factory Records.
The band’s debut album, released in 1980, The Return
of the Durutti Column, fact 14, featured a sleeve
made of sandpaper; this, like the title of the record,
was inspired by a Situationist joke: an artist’s book
made by the French artist and theorist Guy Debord
in collaboration with the Danish artist Asger Jorn,
Mémoires – which had a sandpaper cover, designed
to destroy other books on the shelf (The sandpaper
sheets, glued by hand – by a strapped-for-cash Joy
Division – to the cover of fact 14, dried in warped
peaks and troughs and were potentially even more
damaging to other records).
Always at the forefront of technology thanks to
Factory’s innovative – but sometimes misguided –
policies: in 1985, The Durutti Column released the
first CD-only popular music album with their album
Domo Arigato, fact 144, recorded live in Tokyo.
42 R IS FOR VINI REILLY
Later, in 1987, The Guitar and Other Machines, fact
204, was the first ever commercially available album
to be released on Digital Audio Tape. Perversely it
was also promoted with a 7-inch flexi-disc – a relic
of a bygone age. In 1995, the Factory Too album Sex
and Death, facd 2.01 also appeared in interactive
CD-Rom format.
Musical experimentation, too, has always been the
keynote of The Durutti Column’s music. Able to
flit from classical on Without Mercy, fact 84, to
house on Obey The Time, fact 274, via opera on
Vini Reilly, fact 244, it has never been possible to
pin Vini Reilly down. Tony Wilson recalls trying to
discourage Vini from singing on Durutti Column
releases (his voice is, famously, an acquired taste) by
getting him an Akai S500 sampler: “It’s expression
and you can’t forbid it; it’s his dance. And there
are even Durutti fans who like Vini’s singing. But
they’re off their heads. and there are things you can
do, like get him a sampler and stand back. Which is
what we did, and we stood back in amazement.”
Opposite page, clockwise from top left:
Vini Reilly
Fact 144 The Durutti Column Domo Arigato, 1985
CD front and back
A FACTORY ALPHABET 43
Information Digital print, 2009
Always Now Digital print, 2009

44 INTERPRETATIONS A FACTORY ALPHABET 45


Clockwise from top left:
Fact 223R New Order Fine Time Remix, 1988
Fac 223 New Order Fine Time, 1988
Fac 3 The Factory club poster, 1978
Peter Saville
46 S IS FOR PETER SAVILLE
Peter saville is perhaps the most well-
known graphic designer of his generation.
He was part of a triumvirate of designers that
emerged in the early eighties that had roots within
the post-punk music scene: Malcolm Garrett with
the Buzzcocks, Magazine and Duran Duran; Neville
Brody with Cabaret Voltaire and Fetish Records;
and Peter Saville with Factory Records. Saville and
Garrett both studied at Manchester Polytechnic,
whilst there, Saville was inspired by the work of
typographer Jan Tschichold. According to Saville
“Malcolm had a copy of Herbert Spencer’s Pioneers
of Modern Typography. The one chapter that he
hadn’t reinterpreted in his own work was the cool,
disciplined ‘New Typography’ of Tschichold and its
subtlety appealed to me. I found a paralled in it for
the new wave that was evolving out of punk.”
Saville first met Tony Wilson at a Patti Smith
concert in 1978. This meeting resulted in Wilson
commissioning the first Factory poster, fac 1.
Having long admired the ‘found’ motorway sign
on the cover of Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, the first
album he bought for himself, Saville based the
Factory poster on a found object of his own – an
industrial warning sign he had stolen from a door at
Manchester Polytechnic. Saville became a partner
of Factory Records along with Wilson, Rob Gretton
and Alan Erasmus. As a co-founder of the label, he
was given an unusual, if not unprecedented level
of freedom to design whatever he wanted, just as
the bands were with their music: free from the
constraints of budgets and deadlines which were
routinely imposed on designers elsewhere. Saville
treated his artwork for Factory acts such as Joy
Division and Orchestral Manœuvres In The Dark
as form of self-expression to articulate whatever
happened to obsess or interest him at the time.
In the early 1980s, Saville turned to classical art
historical references, juxtaposing them with complex
coding systems. For the cover of New Order’s 1983
album Power Corruption And Lies, fact 75, he
combined a nineteenth century Fantin-Latour flower
painting with a coded colour alphabet. Having
seen a floppy disk for the first time, he conceived
the sleeve of Blue Monday, fac 73, as a replica.
Notoriously, Factory had to pay more to print the
record’s sleeve than it could sell the single for.
Time and again, Saville’s work has intuitively
touched a nerve: the headstone-like rusted metal
sheet for Joy Division’s Love Will Tear Us Apart, fac
23, and the funereal image used on Closer, fact 25,
were both designed before the tragedy of Ian Curtis’s
suicide. Saville’s experimental collaborations with
photographer Trevor Key using the Diachromatic
photographic silk-screening process on New Order’s
1989 album Technique, fact 275, and the singles
Fine Time, fac 223, and Round & Round, fac 263,
captured the spirit of the drug-fuelled club nights
of 1988, the hey-day of acid house, which had
influenced these tracks, prompting Saville to reflect
that this was “the first time that a New Order cover
reflected something that was actually going on in
youth culture.”
A FACTORY ALPHABET 47
 Thick pigeon was perhaps one of the more
mysterious artists to record for factory.
The group was essentially a vehicle for songwriter
Stanton Miranda and arranger Carter Burwell
plus a rotating roster of guest musicians. Based in
New York, the duo recorded a handful of oblique,
minimalist singles for Les Disques du Crépuscule
(a label, based in Brussels, that had strong links
with Factory) in 1981-82 before moving sideways to
Factory for their first album Too Crazy Cowboys,
fact 85, in 1984. The second Thick Pigeon album,
Miranda Dali, appeared on Crépuscule in 1991.
Operating on the fringes of synth music and
art rock, Thick Pigeon’s use of studio-generated
effects, treated vocals and techno rhythms are like
a precursor of today’s electronica scene. The two
founding members have worked in various careers
since the demise of the band: multi-instrumentalist
Carter Burwell has gone on to provide soundtracks
for around 50 films including Being John Malkovich,
and more recently Burn After Reading and In Bruges,
whilst New York-based singer Stanton Miranda
has played in the band ckm, put together by the
visual artist Dan Graham, with Christine Hahn
(ex-Malaria) and Kim Gordon (later of Sonic Youth);
she has worked with The Durutti Column and Sonic
Youth; and is also an actress and performance artist.
Opposite page, clockwise from top left:
Fact 85 Thick Pigeon Too Crazy Cowboys, 1984
Front and back cover
New Order poster, Lawrence Weiner, 1983
48 T IS FOR THICK PIGEON
Too Crazy Cowboys was recorded with Stephen
Morris and Gillian Gilbert of New Order. The album
was originally to be called ‘Two Crazy Cowboys’
as announced on a promotional poster, fac 131.
The cover was designed by American conceptual
artist Lawrence Weiner, who was commissioned by
Michael Shamberg, head of Factory’s transatlantic
operation, Of Factory NY. Shamberg also
commissioned work for Factory from a range of
contemporary American artists and filmmakers
including John Baldessari, Robert Breer, Jonathon
Demme, Robert Frank, Barbara Kruger, Robert
Longo and William Wegman. The cover features a
wedge-shaped die-cut in the top corner and is typical
of Weiner’s stark angular text and graphic work.
Lawrence Weiner was also commissioned to design
two posters for Factory: one for a New Order concert
at the Paradise Garage, New York in July 1983, the
other for a Section 25 concert at the Ritz in New
York in February 1985.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 49
 Joy division’s debut album was released in
1979 on factory records. Unknown Pleasures,
fact 10, was produced by Martin Hannett at
Strawberry Studios, Stockport. The album sold
poorly on release, but due to the subsequent success
of the 1980 single Love Will Tear Us Apart, fac 23,
Unknown Pleasures became much more well-known
and is now considered to be one of the strongest
debut albums ever, capturing not just a city, but a
moment in time. Factory boss Tony Wilson had
so much faith in the band that he contributed his
£8,500 life savings toward the cost of producing the
initial run of 10,000 copies of the album.
There was no contract at Factory but as Peter Hook
says “We had a sheet of paper saying that the masters
would revert to us after six months if either of us
decided not to work with each other. That was it.
It was amazing the agreement lasted so well.” The
album was Joy Divison’s first breakthrough, on
the opening track, Disorder, Ian Curtis sings ‘I’ve
been waiting for a guide to come and take me by
the hand’, the following nine tracks are a definitive
northern Gothic statement: guilt-ridden, romantic
and claustrophobic. Martin Hannett’s production for
the album is a reflection of Manchester’s dark rainy
spaces of the late 1970s: vacant industrial buildings,
cars speeding along urban clearways and the glow of
orange streetlights.
The album cover is one of the most iconic cover
images of the post-punk era. The cover image comes
from an edition of the Cambridge Encyclopaedia of
Astronomy, and was originally drawn with black
50 U IS FOR UNKNOWN PLEASURES
lines on a white background. It presents exactly 100
successive pulses from the first pulsar discovered (a
pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star
that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation). The
image was suggested by Bernard Sumner and the
cover design is credited to Joy Division, Peter Saville
and Chris Mathan. The back cover of the album
contains no track listings, leaving a blank table
where one would expect this information to be. The
initial release came in a textured sleeve.
The original LP release contained no track
information on the labels, nor the traditional ‘side
one’ and ‘side two’ designations. The ostensible
‘side one’ was labeled ‘Outside’ and displayed a
reproduction of the image on the album cover,
while the other side was labeled ‘Inside’ and
displayed the same image with the colors reversed.
Track information and album credits appeared
on the inner sleeve only which also includes an
uncredited photograph; the image is by an American
photographer, Ralph Gibson, it is untitled and
comes from the photo series The Somnambulist
and is taken from the book with the same name.
The sleeve was printed by Garrod and Lofthouse
who also printed many early Factory albums, singles
and other items. They were responsible for the
printing and construction of various classic sleeves –
for Factory and others – often bearing the enigmatic
inscription ‘G+L’. Like Factory, the company went
into liquidation in the mid-1990s.
Opposite page: Fact 10 Joy Division Unknown Pleasures, 1979
A FACTORY ALPHABET 51
This page: Fred and judy vermorel were writers and black or grey cassette. The label on the cassette reads:
Fac 198 Vermorel Stereo/Porno, 1988
music journalists. Together, they waged a ‘Would everybody wash their hands before...’ A card
Front and back cover
Opposite page: tactical campaign at Britain’s national publishers came with the release: ‘From the city that brought
Fact 30 The Sex Pistols The Heyday, 1980 association, the British Phonographic Industry you Strangeways. Seasonal Greetings and a seasoned
(BPI), the policing mechanism that seeks to control cassette. Love, Factory.’
pop music in Britain. Factory (who were not
members of the BPI) released Vermorel’s Stereo/
Porno single, fac 198, ‘specially commissioned for
the BPI Awards 1988’. A poster, Bums For BPI,
bearing the Factory number fac 199 also appeared.

The single is a great piece of electro/orchestral

melodrama and has a brilliant lyric with vocals from
Ginny Clee, who also became to the cover star of
fac 198. She recalls “My publishing company of the
time Warner/Chappell put me together with a
writing duo called The Vermorels. They were a
husband/wife team who had made their name as pop
commentators having written a book on the Sex
Pistols. I could talk for hours about this partnership
as it was almost the end of me but this page isn’t long
enough. The good that came out of it was a single on
Factory Records called Stereo/Porno. It wasn’t a hit
but it did end up in The Victoria and Albert Museum
in their Best Record Covers of all Time exhibition. The
designer was Peter Saville, the photographer Fred
Vermorel and the naked ass... mine!”

The Sex Pistols – The Heyday, fact 30, is billed as ‘A

Factory Records Documentary Cassette’, it contains
interviews by Fred and Judy Vermorel with Sid
Vicious, Steve Jones, Paul Cook, Johnny Rotten
and Malcolm McLaren’s Grandmother. The cassette
comes in a black vinyl pouch with either golden,

52 V IS FOR VERMOREL A FACTORY ALPHABET 53

Clockwise from top left:
Peter Saville, Tony Wilson and
Alan Erasmus outside The Factory, 1978
Tony Wilson with beard, 2007
Tony Wilson at The Haçienda, 1985
Anthony howard wilson, best known
as tony wilson, was born in 1950 in salford,
lancashire. He was a record label owner, radio
presenter, TV show host, nightclub manager,
impresario and journalist for Granada Television
and the BBC. Wilson was the founder and manager
of The Haçienda nightclub, and was one of the
five co-founders of Factory Records. Wilson was
sometimes called ‘Mr. Manchester’ because of his
work in promoting the greater cultural status of
Manchester throughout his career. He was also
known as ‘Wilson ya wanker!’ – a statement that
was bandied around Manchester for almost thirty
years and one that he seemed to relish – but a
mixture of self-deprecation and super-confidence
was always a major part of the Wilson brand.
Wilson’s involvement in popular music stemmed
from hosting Granada’s culture and music
programme So It Goes. Wilson saw the Sex Pistols at
the Manchester Lesser Free Trade Hall, in June 1976,
an experience which he described as “nothing short
of an epiphany.” He booked them for the last episode
of the first series, probably the first television
showing of the then-revolutionary British strand
of punk rock.
Wilson had an interest in Situationism, the ideas of
The Situationist International, a small group
of international political and artistic agitators with
roots in Marxism, Lettrism and the early twentieth
century European artistic and political avant-gardes.
Situationist references around Factory Records range
from the obvious (The Haçienda) to the tenuous
54 W IS FOR TONY WILSON
(The Stockholm Monsters, named after Swedish
youth riots of 1956). Wilson recalled in 2001 “We
all wanted to to destroy the system but didn’t know
how. We knew about Strasbourg and the Situationist
tactics of creative plagiarism and basing change
on desire. The Situationists offered, I thought then
and I still think now, the only future revolution
I could imagine or want.” Factory sponsored the
ICA’s Situationist International exhibition catalogue
in 1989 and in 1996 hosted the Situationist
International conference at The Haçienda.
He never made a fortune from Factory Records or
The Haçienda, despite the enormous popularity
and cultural significance of both endeavours. Both
Factory Records and The Haçienda came to an
abrupt end in the late 1990s. Wilson made several
attempts to start new versions of Factory – none were
as successful as the original.
In 2007, Wilson developed renal cancer and had
one kidney removed. Despite the surgery, the
cancer progressed, and a course of chemotherapy
was not effective. Wilson died of a heart attack,
a consequence of his condition, in Manchester’s
Christie Hospital on Friday, 10 August 2007 aged
57. Following the news of his death, the Union Jack
on Manchester Town Hall was lowered to half mast
as a mark of respect. As with everything else in the
Factory empire, Tony Wilson’s coffin was given a
Factory catalogue number – fac 501.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 55
Clockwise from top left:
X-O-Dus press shot, 1975
Flyer for The Factory featuring X-O-Dus, 1979
Fac 11 X-O-Dus English Black Boys, 1980
Front and back cover
Hailing from hulme and moss side,
x-o-dus were regulars at the russell club,
the original home of the factory club
night. Initially formed in mid-1975, the founder
members were Honey, Leddy, Trevor Bell, and
shortly after, Dave Reid. The aim of the band was to
play the kind of music which they themselves wanted
to hear and that was not being played by others at
the time: a progressive reggae, a new, young sound
which could be understood and enjoyed by black
and white alike.
In early 1979 the band changed their management
and in June, recorded their ‘rainy city reggae’ at Cargo
Studios in Rochdale. Tony Wilson heard the resulting
tape and the song English Black Boys made such an
impression on him that the band were offered a deal
for a single almost immediately, making X-O-Dus the
first reggae band to sign to a leading independent
label. It was decided that the single should be a
12-inch, comprising English Black Boys – which
clocked in at just over ten minutes – as the a-side, and
a new song, See Them A’ Come as the b-side.
Factory engaged the dub producer Dennis Bovell to
mix the single. Bovell, who had previously worked
with The Pop Group and also with Janet Kay on the
hit single Silly Games, was busy with other projects,
including the album Cut by the Slits, and the release
was delayed until the following year. X-O-Dus
performed at the Leigh Festival, Zoo Meets Factory
Halfway and at the Moonlight Club showcase but
fac 11 was their only record on Factory, and is the
label’s sole reggae release. When the single eventually
56 X IS FOR X-O-DUS
hit the shops at the end of April 1980, it received
favourable reviews in Sounds, Melody Maker and
the NME. X-O-Dus were also favourably reviewed
in the Manchester listings magazine City Fun (date
unknown): ‘First on are X-O-Dus, possibly the
most underrated Reggae band in the country, not,
as I’ve said before, I don’t claim to know a great deal
about the subject, the sooner someone who does
takes the time to write in, the sooner we’ll be able to
give bands like X-O-Dus the coverage they deserve.
Manager Mr Dunlop’s movement of Ja People
seemed very impressive, if the size of the supporters’
entourage is anything to go by, X-O-Dus must be
highly regarded in reggae circles. Now with a single
out on Factory, which I have listened too and did
appreciate, and getting radio play, apparently the
lout (John) Peel thinks it’s great as well, so there ye
go. Come on all you Lee Perry impersonators, let’s
have a full-size X-O-Dus feature/interview.’
The sleeve for English Black Boys, was designed by
Peter Saville and, typically for a Factory release,
was available in two different versions: a dark grey
textured card sleeve, and a light grey regular card
sleeve. The single had ‘for j anderton’ scratched in
the run-out groove – a reference to James Anderton,
the disputed head of Manchester Police.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 57
 Clockwise from top left: Cabaret voltaire was an experimental
Fac 82 Cabaret Voltaire Yashar, 1983
electronic group from sheffield. Initially
Cabaret Voltaire, 1980
composed of Stephen Mallinder, Richard H Kirk
and Chris Watson, the group was named after the
Cabaret Voltaire, a nightclub in Zurich, Switzerland
that was a centre for the early Dada movement.
The band formed in 1973 and experimented widely
with sound creation and processing. Their earliest
performances were dada-influenced performance
art; in one incident, Mallinder was hospitalised after
the band had objects thrown at them. However, the
arrival of punk brought a more accepting audience
for their industrial, electronic sound. The group
performed at the Factory on 2 June 1978 during the
opening run at the Russell Club, before releasing
their debut EP Extended Play on the Rough Trade
label in November.
The fourth side of A Factory Sample, fac 2, was
their second vinyl release and was recorded at their
own studio, Western Works, in Sheffield. Stephen
Mallinder says: “We had already done Baader
Meinhof and wanted to get it out, but it didn’t really
fit in on Extended Play, so it was a good opportunity.
Sex in Secret was done specially for fac 2. I think
both tracks, and specifically the titles, which were
intended to provoke a response, seemed to fit
with Factory’s sensibilities. I think Tony wore his
Situationist heart on his sleeve.”
Although they had contributed two tracks to
A Factory Sample, and would have co-headlined the
cancelled American tour with Joy Division in May
1980, Rough Trade were the first to offer to finance
58 Y IS FOR YASHAR
an album and the group signed to and remained
with the label until 1982. With Rough Trade they
released several acclaimed musically experimental
singles and EPs, including Nag Nag Nag, Silent
Command, and Sluggin’ fer Jesus, and albums such
as The Voice of America, 1980, and Red Mecca, 1981.
Yashar was among their last recordings with
founder member Chris Watson in October 1981,
and appeared on the transitional album 2 x 45.
Yashar, fac 82, was labelled as a ‘(re)production
of john robie overdubs/mix’. Remixer John
Robie was a New York-based musician and keyboard
programmer whose previous credits – with Arthur
Baker – included the seminal electro singles Planet
Rock by Afrika Bambaataa & the Soul Sonic Force
and Play At Your Own Risk by Planet Patrol. He
remixed New Order’s Sub-culture, fac 113, and later
co-wrote and co-produced New Order’s Shellshock,
fac 143. The reworked Yashar 12-inch was released
by Factory US and Factory Benelux in July 1983.
The cover was a generic ‘factory records giant
single’ sleeve which was designed by Anthony
Wilson with record labels designed by Mark Holt.
The next Cabaret Voltaire releases apeared on
Virgin, and saw the band stripped down to a duo
of Kirk and Mallinder who released progressively
more commercial music. Yashar, their final release
on Factory can be viewed as a transition between
the band’s earlier more cut-up experimental sound
and their embracing of new technologies and a move
towards dancefloor-orientated tracks.
A FACTORY ALPHABET 59

Clockwise from top left:
Fac 278 Indambinigi Zimba, 1990
Karl Denver yodelling
Fac 228 Karl Denver Wimoweh 89, 1989
60 Z IS FOR ZIMBA
Released by factory in august 1990, zimba is guesting on their track Lazyitis (One Armed
a 12-inch single, fac 278, by indambinigi. The Boxer), fac 222. The single made the Top 50 but
single is a one-off collaboration between guitarist Denver contracted pneumonia whilst filming the
and DJ Steve Lima and Karl Denver. The cover video. He subsequently released a dance version
erroneously reads ‘indambinig’, Lima recalls “We of Wimoweh, fac 228, on Factory which was
were actually meant to be called ‘indambinigi’ but produced by Mike Pickering and Graeme Park.
someone at Factory mispelt it.” Zimba with its b-side Shengali is a mixture of beats
and ethnic vocals, it was produced by Steve Lima
Denver, a champion of World music had had a hit and written by Karl Denver and Steve Lima.
record with his 1961 version of Wimoweh with the
Karl Denver Trio which showed off his falsetto The artwork for Zimba, which was released on
yodelling register; Denver claimed to have discovered vinyl only, was by Central Station; the designers
the song in South Africa during his days as a seaman abandoned their trademark neo-psychedelic
but it had already been a hit, in 1951, in the hands of work that epitomised their ‘Madchester’ phase
American folk group The Weavers, and in 1961, The and adopted a more restrained style. The cover
Tokens had re-recorded it, with new lyrics, as The design has a muted colour scheme with a
Lion Sleeps Tonight. The Karl Denver Trio version typeface (Gill Shadow) that is almost – but not
displayed Denver’s vocal gymnastics to full effect quite – an echo of the early Factory sleeves.
and its success propelled the group into the upper
reaches of British show business.
During the early 1960s Denver was a familiar figure
on both radio and the concert stage, performing in
what one reviewer called his “eardrum piercing,
multi-octave range.” There were further small hits for
the Trio in 1964, but their music sounded decidedly
old-fashioned compared with that of the Fab Four
and the numerous beat groups who now dominated
the pop scene. Although The Karl Denver Trio faded
from the media limelight, they continued to perform
in cabaret at home and overseas.
There was a brief, unexpected return to the charts
in 1989 when the Happy Mondays had Denver
A FACTORY ALPHABET 61
 “The hacienda must be built.”

Compiled, edited and

designed by James Brook

www.jamesbrook.net
www.factoryalphabet.info

102432

62 THE END A FACTORY ALPHABET 63