All of New Order’s single sleeves reduced to 3x3 pixels.
You can buy posters and shirts and such of the design here.
To mark 30 years of New Order, Clash magazine commissioned Howard Wakefield to design a special cover image for the August 2011 issue which featured an interview with New Order.
“I have been fortunate enough to design (with Peter Saville) New Order sleeves for 20 of those years and this was a real honour. But one image to illustrate 30 years of ‘New Order’? When I think about imagery and New Order, I instantly think of all the sleeves; Joy Division and New Order sleeves are often referred to as being iconic designs, but rather than showing a montage of them, which have been much seen, admired and recognised, I wondered how recognisable are they?
I was curious to find out, if I reduced them in some way, could they still be recognisable. I tried blurring and distorting them, but they rapidly became something else, however by simplifying them to their basic colour elements, they appeared to remain true to their iconic designs. I found I could reduce them a great deal - so far in fact to just 9 simple squares - and ironically, this reducing reminded me of today’s requirement to design a sleeve that can work as a tiny ‘thumbnail’ to be used on iTunes rather than the expanse we once enjoyed with a 12 inch record sleeve.
