'Unknown Pleasures' Poster

Promotional poster for the UK first release of Unknown Pleasures, Joy Division's debut LP, issued by Factory Records in June 1979 under the catalogue number FACT 10. The cover — designed by Peter Saville and reproduced on this poster — is among the most recognized graphic statements of the post-punk era: a black sheet bearing stacked plots of successive radio pulses from the pulsar CP 1919, drawn from a diagram published in Harold D. Craft's 1970 Cornell University astronomy doctoral thesis, by way of The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Astronomy (1977). Saville's design has remained continuously in print, reproduction, and homage for over four decades. The present example is the original UK Factory Records issue.

LITERATURE:

A subsequent Australian release of the same design (GAP Records, under license from Factory Records, 1981) is illustrated in Krivine, Andrew. Too Fast To Live, Too Young To Die: Punk and Post-Punk Graphics. London: Pavilion Books, 2020, p. 302

PROVENANCE:

Too Fast To Live Collection