Destroy! The influence of punk. – Details, episodes & analysis

“Fond affections are never said, they’re only sung in song.” (Michael Allen, Rema Rema)

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Born in 1957 in County Durham, northeast England, British designer Vaughan Oliver stepped out of a world steeped in tradition and into the nonconformist realm of the music industry. 

Growing up in an environment devoid of culture, it was through Surrealism and Pop Art that he discovered modern art, its power to open up his imagination, and provide a doorway to new adventures rich with possibilities. 

Inspired by the work of record cover designer Roger Dean, he eventually found his calling at independent record label 4AD, where he worked with many of post-punk’s early pioneers: Cocteau Twins, Modern English, Colourbox, Lush, and of course This Mortal Coil.

In 1982, with school friend and photographer Nigel Grierson, he founded the design studio 23 Envelope, which quickly became a center for creative innovation and revolution. 

In 1988, after Oliver and Grierson decided to part ways, Oliver went on to establish V23, fostering creative relationships with a new band of like-minded revolutionaries such as Chris Bigg and Simon Larbalestier, whose collaboration on the Pixies' Minotaur box set would earn them all a Grammy in 2010.

The studio’s work also expanded into TV and film, but Oliver was always at his most content sitting down with a group of students, talking about ideas and football. 

He was a generous man, a loving father, a dedicated teacher, and an inspiration for generations of designers and musicians. 

After he died in 2019 at age 62, his legacy continued through his wife, Lee, who helped establish the Vaughan Oliver Graphic Design Scholarship program with Northumbria University and 4AD in 2021.

Vaughan Oliver was a man of vast cerebral intellect with an impeccable sense of comedic timing. 

His life’s work was a poetic journey through sight and sound, and his impact on art and culture is still being felt today.

This isn’t a biography. It’s a collage. Of images, of memory, of fond affections. The kind you can’t always say out loud—but you never forget.

Featuring interviews with: Simon Raymonde, musician, founder Bella Union records; Paul West, artist and designer, founder Form; Tim O’Donnell, designer; Tom Murray, filmmaker and musician, founder Tulipomania; Adrian Shaughnessy, author, designer, publisher; Miki Berenyi, songwriter and musician, founder Lush and MB3; Graham Wood, art director and designer, founder Tomato; Jonathan Barnbrook, designer; Chris Bigg, designer. Archival audio: Vaughan Oliver, designer; Nigel Grierson, photographer; Ivo Watts-Russell, founder 4AD Records. Additional contributions from: Malcolm Garrett, designer, founder Assorted iMages; Neville Brody, designer, founder Brody Associates. And with generous support from Lee Widdows, art director, trend consultant, School Academic Lead UCA, Epsom, and keeper of the light.

“Fond affections are never said, they’re only sung in song.” (Michael Allen, Rema Rema)

—

Born in 1957 in County Durham, northeast England, British designer Vaughan Oliver stepped out of a world steeped in tradition and into the nonconformist realm of the music industry. 

Growing up in an environment devoid of culture, it was through Surrealism and Pop Art that he discovered modern art, its power to open up his imagination, and provide a doorway to new adventures rich with possibilities. 

Inspired by the work of record cover designer Roger Dean, he eventually found his calling at independent record label 4AD, where he worked with many of post-punk’s early pioneers: Cocteau Twins, Modern English, Colourbox, Lush, and of course This Mortal Coil.

In 1982, with school friend and photographer Nigel Grierson, he founded the design studio 23 Envelope, which quickly became a center for creative innovation and revolution. 

In 1988, after Oliver and Grierson decided to part ways, Oliver went on to establish V23, fostering creative relationships with a new band of like-minded revolutionaries such as Chris Bigg and Simon Larbalestier, whose collaboration on the Pixies' Minotaur box set would earn them all a Grammy in 2010.

The studio’s work also expanded into TV and film, but Oliver was always at his most content sitting down with a group of students, talking about ideas and football. 

He was a generous man, a loving father, a dedicated teacher, and an inspiration for generations of designers and musicians. 

After he died in 2019 at age 62, his legacy continued through his wife, Lee, who helped establish the Vaughan Oliver Graphic Design Scholarship program with Northumbria University and 4AD in 2021.

Vaughan Oliver was a man of vast cerebral intellect with an impeccable sense of comedic timing. 

His life’s work was a poetic journey through sight and sound, and his impact on art and culture is still being felt today.

This isn’t a biography. It’s a collage. Of images, of memory, of fond affections. The kind you can’t always say out loud—but you never forget.

Featuring interviews with: Simon Raymonde, musician, founder Bella Union records; Paul West, artist and designer, founder Form; Tim O’Donnell, designer; Tom Murray, filmmaker and musician, founder Tulipomania; Adrian Shaughnessy, author, designer, publisher; Miki Berenyi, songwriter and musician, founder Lush and MB3; Graham Wood, art director and designer, founder Tomato; Jonathan Barnbrook, designer; Chris Bigg, designer. Archival audio: Vaughan Oliver, designer; Nigel Grierson, photographer; Ivo Watts-Russell, founder 4AD Records. Additional contributions from: Malcolm Garrett, designer, founder Assorted iMages; Neville Brody, designer, founder Brody Associates. And with generous support from Lee Widdows, art director, trend consultant, School Academic Lead UCA, Epsom, and keeper of the light.

The day Malcolm Garrett walked into Virgin Records in 1977 and bought Anarchy in the UK was a revelation. The Sex Pistols, and punk, were a modern manifestation of his Dadaist dream, and seeing them playing on TV that day changed his life. 

From that moment on he knew he was destined to bring his artistic vision to the masses and went on to create some of the most daring and original work for multiple punk, post-punk, new wave, and new romantic bands in history: Magazine, Duran Duran, Simple Minds, and Culture Club, amongst many others. His cover for the Buzzcocks notorious single “Orgasm Addict”, is considered one of the most important record covers of that time. 

Unafraid to mix high art with pop culture, his work also helped define the aesthetic of an era, creating unique visual identities that elevated the public image of each band he worked with. And, as the 80s saw the birth of MTV, his unique vision also helped them conquer the second “British invasion” of America, enabling them to cement a place in the hearts and minds of anyone who had just turned 16. 

“In 1977, the rebellious ‘Dada’ movement that I was looking for suddenly walked through the door, and it was a band called the Sex Pistols. It was like a light switch. Click. That’s it. Today. I’m a punk from here on in.” (Malcolm Garrett)

Born and raised in Cheshire, on the outskirts of Manchester, England, his contrarian point of view and passion for design earned him an MBE in 2020. He is currently the creative director of Images & Co and continues to work with long-term business partner and Design Manchester co-director, Kasper de Graaf.

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Filmmaker and video director Peter Care has spent a lifetime reimagining his craft. In the early 1970s, inspired by documentary filmmakers such as Ken Loach and cinematic auteurs such as Kenneth Anger and Luis Buñuel, he started the Sheffield Independent Film Company, which grew to be the largest film production company outside of London. 

Seeing a live performance by industrial music artists, Cabaret Voltaire, changed his career trajectory and started a long-term relationship with the band that began with Care’s short film, “Johnny Yesno.” His music video for their 1984 song “Sensoria,” was one of the most requested videos on the MTV video charts for 7 months. It was subsequently procured by the Museum of Modern Art, in New York, bringing him long-sought recognition for his unique approach to filmmaking. 

“At the time, people wanted to move away from the norm of putting up with conventions and the deadening mediocrity that seemed to be happening with much of the film and TV you were seeing. That’s what I was trying to do with music videos, I was a bit of a rebel.” (Peter Care)

It also brought him to Los Angeles and work with Public Image Ltd, R.E.M., New Order, HBO, Jodi Foster, and Levi’s. He also directed films for the Santa Monica City Council as part of their residents’ Well-being program, which helped the council win a $1,000,000 prize from Michael Bloomberg’s Philanthropies’ Mayors Challenge.

His documentaries for Yo San University have also helped to highlight the school’s pioneering work in integrative medicine in treating poor communities across Southern California.

His first feature film, “The Dangerous Lives of Altar Boys,” was voted Best First Feature Film at the Independent Spirit Awards in 2002. His music video for “Sensoria” was also voted the Best Video of the Year (1985) by the LA Times and is considered the greatest “underground” music video of all time. He also received six nominations for R.E.M.’s “Man on the Moon” video at the 1993 MTV Video Music Awards.

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At 17, inspired by the defiant spirit he saw in the various music magazines of the day, Anton Corbijn picked up his father’s camera and never looked back. By 1979, he was in London, capturing a photo of his beloved Joy Division at Lancaster Gate tube station. A year later, Ian Curtis’s death would transform the image into an icon, and cement Corbijn’s place in photography’s rock-n-roll hall of fame.

“ I like people finding my work somewhere, that’s what I always liked about magazines, you accidentally meet your work if you publish in magazines, and I’ve always liked that.”

Throughout his career, with a camera always as his cover, Corbijn has built countless profound relationships with artists and musicians of every kind and creative persuasion, capturing their essence through his raw, unfiltered reportage style. None are more profound than his 40-year collaboration with Depeche Mode, a deeply prolific relationship that began in 1986, which has propelled both Corbijn and the band into cult-like heroes. 

Today, continuously pushing himself forward, his relentless vision and unwavering ambition have made him a pioneer in image-making and visual storytelling. From album covers to set design, and music videos to filmmaking, he is constantly pushing the boundaries of his craft, always inserting his unmistakable personality into every project and idea; leading him to fertile collaborations with legends like George Clooney, REM, Philip Seymour Hoffman, and U2, and establishing him as one of the most influential creators of the 20th century.

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The work of acclaimed narrative designer and world visionary, Alex McDowell, has probably touched every corner of our lives. Beginning with an early career at street-style magazine i-D, he quickly moved on to music videos for Depeche Mode and Iggy Pop, record covers for Siouxsie and the Banshees, as well as game design for the BBC, and continues to fall forward even today. 

The incident that started it all was when he put on one of the first-ever live shows by the Sex Pistols at the Central School of Art in London, in 1975. This “transformative” moment has taken him from working with Vivienne Westwood to collaborating with David Fincher on his groundbreaking film Fight Club, as well as devising a window into the future with Steven Spielberg’s Minority Report. 

“I'm always drawn to something that's going to be disruptive, and seeing the Sex Pistols on stage for the first time immediately reverberated. I’m here now because of that night.”

Never one to sit still, he also teaches World Building at the University of Southern California, encouraging students to imagine an uncharted and unknown future.

In 2006, McDowell was named Royal Designer for Industry by the RSA, a design society, and was appointed Visiting Artist at the MIT Media Lab. In April 2015, McDowell was awarded the BritWeek Business Innovation Award.

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Stephen Mallinder has been pushing the boundaries of music since he cofounded Cabaret Voltaire in 1973, long before punk even opened the door. The band’s influence has reached far and wide since those early revolutionary days inspiring many of the music industry’s most creative artists, including, Nine Inch Nails, and Depeche Mode, and helping set up musical “signposts” for house music, techno, and hip-hop to follow. “We were influenced as much by film and television as anything else. We saw ourselves as modernists, as people looking to the future. As part of the machinery of the modern world.”

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Peter Saville is arguably one of the 20th century’s most important artists. Growing up in 70s Manchester, inspired by the influence of punk, Saville seized the opportunity to change the world. Cofounder of legendary Factory Records, his groundbreaking design work for New Order and Joy Division inspired generations and influenced culture for decades.

"I saw my work as signposts, where I thought things were going, my work was not actually about music, the music was the pulse beat of the moment and I tried to make a visual analogy as I heard it.”

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On December 1st, 1976, the Sex Pistols appeared on English national television cursing and swearing obscenities. The “Bill Grundy incident,” riled a nation, incensed one man to destroy his TV, and inspired multiple generations of aspiring cultural revolutionaries to change the world.-

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1970s England: societal decline, civil unrest, riots, striking miners, mountains of rubbish, mounting inflation, no power, a 3 day work-week, and no jobs - punk. -

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