
The History of Joy Division’s “Unknown Pleasures” Album Art - bravura
http://adamcap.com/2011/05/19/history-of-joy-division-unknown-pleasures-album-art/
======
NelsonMinar
This whole article reads like it's written by someone who has never been
inside a library. "it would be nice to have an original copy of those 3
aforementioned works in front of me to see if they list any copyright". If
only there were institutions that have copies of obscure works like
"Scientific American" that allowed people to peruse them for free.

Here's an animated, interactive visualization that looks like the Joy Division
album cover, based on d3.js <https://github.com/daliwali/unknown_pleasures>

~~~
waterlesscloud
I happen to own a copy of the Cambridge Encyclopedia Of Astronomy (Doesn't
everyone?).

There's no attribution credit for the image, though many other images in the
book have such credits.

The caption does note, however, that the pulsar has a period of 1.337 seconds.
I believe this makes it quite leet.

~~~
xefer
I too had a copy.

I remember when the album came out I immediately recognized the image, but I
had no idea they had lifted it directly from the book itself. Now I wish I
hadn't cut the picture out and taped it to the wall. :)

------
laumars
That was a long blog which essentially would have been pretty common knowledge
for most Joy Division fans and/or people interested in astrophysics. And
because of that I think the author missed out on raising a bigger and more
interesting discussion: (I'll quote one of the comments on his site as that
phrases is things rather well)

 _Interesting, but the article misses the point in all kinds of ways. It was
common knowledge (at least, to those familiar with Joy Division and Saville's
work) that the image itself was appropriated from an original that was in the
public domain. The interesting point here is not copyright, but the way in
which an image can come to represent a concept such that it gains new meaning.
When the intended audience sees this, they think, "Joy Division", not
"pulsar". Hence, when you copy the image by way of Saville, you are
appropriating the association that he has established. So, this isn't about
stealing images, it's about riding on the coat-tails of a talented designer
who managed to create a strong brand._

 _A proper understanding of what's going on here makes this sentiment: "If you
ever want to use the image for your own personal benefit, just make sure it’s
clear you have no connection with Joy Division, Peter Saville, etc…" pretty
shiesty._

~~~
bjornsteffanson
Can you define 'shiesty'? Not having a go, just haven't heard that word
before, and searching returns conflicting results.

~~~
michaelwww
The top Google links didn't mention Shakespeare's Shylock, which I always
understood to be the origin. It turns out there is some disagreement between
this origin and a German word.

[http://observer.com/2003/04/national-review-and-shyster-
heav...](http://observer.com/2003/04/national-review-and-shyster-heaven/)

------
craigching
I can't really contribute anything to the discussion about the image and
rights associated with it, but since I have to say I probably never would have
guessed that one of my favorite bands ever would show up on HN, I guess I'm
going to comment anyway. :)

This was probably the first album that made me consider album art as real
works of art. I still love Joy Division's music today and I will _never_
forget this album cover and what I thought when I bought the album (I was a
little late to discover Joy Division while Ian Curtis was alive, having
discovered them through New Order around 1983 or so). Being interested in
Astrophysics (as a lay person) and I believe I read that the band referred to
this as "the death of a star" at the time. Love the imagery associated with
that.

Great album, great cover art, and great band, I really wish Ian Curtis could
have graced us with more from his fantastic mind, I don't think I've ever
experienced so much fantastic imagery from any other lyricist.

EDIT: Oh, I forgot, the original CD insert that had this image on it wasn't
simple paper as I recall, it was a sort of rough paper (don't know how else to
describe it) with the image on it and you could feel the bumps of the lines.

I think it was that, more than even the image by itself, the two together,
which really fascinated me. I wish I would have kept that edition of the CD,
it was an expensive import at the time and quite original, but I went through
a few CD purges back in the 90's and that was a casualty of one of them. :( Oh
well. I really wish I would have gotten the vinyl and kept that, but CD's were
all the rage back then.

~~~
joezydeco
Saville does pretty amazing stuff.

The original sleeve for New Order's Blue Monday was a die-cut sleeve that
looked like a large floppy disc. It's routinely told that the sleeve cost more
to produce than the entire disc was worth. Factory Records lost money on each
copy sold.

Saville also designed Tony Wilson's headstone, which is pretty freaking cool
(even though it took a few years to get done)

<http://kottke.org/10/10/tony-wilsons-headstone>

~~~
theIV
I haven't seen that before so thanks for linking! I've been a huge fan of
Saville's work for years now, and a bit of a collector of his work. I have a
couple of the special boxed Factory Records tapes from the earlier Factory
years, including Unknown Pleasures.

I'm also glad to see the tombstone is using the Factory Records typeface (at
least up top). I wonder if it has a FAC catalog number...

~~~
arethuza
According to the Guardian:

"The headstone doesn't have a Factory catalogue number (that tradition ended
with Wilson's coffin, FAC 501)"

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/26/fitting-
headston...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/oct/26/fitting-headstone-
tony-wilson-grave)

------
adsr
Interesting, I have always thought that image was from a Fairlight waveform
display.

[http://machinesdontcare.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/fairligh...](http://machinesdontcare.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/fairlight_cmi_page_d_01.jpg)
[http://myblogitsfullofstars.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/fl2x...](http://myblogitsfullofstars.files.wordpress.com/2009/11/fl2xdisplay.jpg)

------
kens
Popular Science in 1973 had an interesting article¹ on cutting-edge computer
visualization, including a star-data image similar in style to the Joy
Division image, except in perspective and with different data. The article
describes new technology that allowed "fantastic" visualization with 7 colors.

The Joy Division style 3-D surface plots were a pretty standard computer
graphics thing in the 1970s, often with lines in the Y direction too making a
grid. They had the advantage of being pretty easy to program and not requiring
a lot of memory - just start drawing lines at the front and keep track of the
highest point at each X position. A function such as a damped sinusoid makes a
nice image this way.

I'm impressed by the author's tenacity and research, but a library would have
really helped him out. Also, I'm puzzled why he thinks the lack of a © on the
image itself matters - magazines usually have something like "Entire contents
copyright" in the masthead.

¹
[http://books.google.com/books?id=IWxyanKoRUoC&lpg=PA104&...](http://books.google.com/books?id=IWxyanKoRUoC&lpg=PA104&dq=hidden%20line%20plots&pg=PA102#v=onepage&q=hidden%20line%20plots&f=false)

------
raverbashing
One thing I can't understand from this image

Apparently it was done with some sort of oscillograph.

So how come the peaks hide the drawings behind it?

Ok, thinking about this, if the drawing is done all at the same time, (like a
signal FFT from the 60's) then the lower drawing device hits the upper drawing
device (if the signal is bigger) hence making both trace the same thing.

~~~
Luc
The image dates from 1971. I am going to guess it was simply drawn on a
plotter, using a hidden-line removal algorithm. The same could have been done
on a vector monitor, but it seems the image has the wrong dimensions for that.

To give you an idea of what was possible in 1971, the arcade machine Computer
Space was released that year: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_Space>

~~~
laumars
Actually you're both wrong. The image is from the late 60s and isn't one
single plotted graph but actually multiple different measurements that have
then been stacked to make comparison easier.

This article does actually explain this, but I can forgive you for not getting
that far as it's the very last item on his blog and appears only to have been
mentioned as an after thought.

~~~
raverbashing
And here's the relevant citation

    
    
       EIGHTY SUCCESSIVE PERIODS of the first pulsar observed, 
       CP1919 (Cambridge pulsar at 19 hours 19 minutes right  
       ascension), are stacked on top of one another using the 
       average period of 1.33730 seconds in this computer-generated 
       illustration produced at the Arecibo Radio Observatory in 
       Puerto Rico.

~~~
Someone
A method for making such plots lives on in ImageJ (a Java version of NCSA
Image). For example, see [http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/docs/guide/146-30.html#toc-
Subsecti...](http://rsbweb.nih.gov/ij/docs/guide/146-30.html#toc-
Subsection-30.12).

------
DanBC
So, now the author has a rough idea about the copyright status of the image. I
want to know if the record companies agree.

I'd love to see the t-shirt produced, and the reaction from the record
companies.

~~~
UntitledNo4
The blog post was written on 19th May 2011, so I guess that the T-Shirt was
either produced already, or that the whole project has been shelved. His last
update to his post is from December 2012, and there is no mention about an
actual T-Shirt that was produced. I would have also like to see the design of
the T-Shirt, but I guess I never will.

------
stuartd
I was in MOMA in Glasgow a few years ago - back when it used to have cool
stuff - and there was an installation in the basement, part of which was a
running turntable with the needle stuck in the locked groove at the end. The
record was - of course - Unknown Pleasures, and in a pleasing symmetry I was
wearing my T-Shirt with the pulsar image on it.

------
cylinder714
My favorite animated-GIF version, via maxgif.com:

[http://24.media.tumblr.com/b2d0e6039db4d09a5b543bd121012321/...](http://24.media.tumblr.com/b2d0e6039db4d09a5b543bd121012321/tumblr_mkw5mcek6B1rzthl7o1_500.gif)

------
ivan_ah
Startup idea: make copyright suck less.

It seems that the options for getting artistic content for your products
(websites/books/games/album covers) these days are limited. Either you go get
something off istock photo, or your rip from google images hoping that the
original owner doesn't notice.

Wouldn't it be nice to have a marketplace for art? Or some sort of protocol
for tracking down who created what?

The business model for the company would be that of intermediary -- i find who
the copyright belongs to and skim a keep a percentage of the royalty.

Better art and no fear of copyright infringement for clients + better paid
artists = win win.

------
nhebb
I would have guessed it was a mountain range from an LoTR map, e.g.
[http://www.lord-of-the-
rings.org/collections/maps/map6%5B1%5...](http://www.lord-of-the-
rings.org/collections/maps/map6%5B1%5D.jpg)

------
famousactress
My favorite parody of the album cover so far, and particularly relevant:
<http://four-pins.com/style/ive-seen-it-on-tumblr/>

------
pranavrc
That pulsar has been my desktop background for a few years now. Brutally
honest, cathartic album and one of the first ones where I 'identified with'
the music and the art.

------
glomph
No one on here has access to nature.com? It seems like my university stopped
paying for it, otherwise I would have checked.

~~~
TimSAstro
I checked the nature paper - no plots! (Well, no multi-line plots in the
fashion of the one in question).

~~~
glomph
Thanks for checking.

------
Luyt
I once wrote a program in BASIC (on my C64) which would make such a display
(it's straightforward). I lost that program, but recreated a lookalike in
Python:

    
    
                            --                   --
                         ---                       ---
       ------------------                             -------------
                           --------------------------
              -------------   ------------------     -------------
       -------            ----   -              -------           -
                  --------   -    -                    -------
       -----------          -      --------                   -----
                       -----       -       ---------
               --------    -        -               --------
       --------     -------          -----------            -------
          ----------             -------        -----------
       ---               -     --       -------            --------
                        -    --         --     -
                       -   --          -        -
       ----------------  --           -          ------------------
                      ---            -            -
       ---------------              -              ----------------
                                   -                -
                           -----------------         --
       --------------------      ------     ------     ------------
               ------           -      --         ------
       --------            -----       ----             -----------
                    -------  -       --   -------
              ------        -       -       -    -------
       -------            --       -         --         -----------
                        --        -            -
       -----------------        --              -------------------
                               -      -----      --
                             --     --     --      --
       -----------------------------         --      --------------
        -----------               -           -----------
       -                        --              -        ----------
                              --                 --
                            --                     --
       ---------------------                         --------------
    
    

_heuh... it looks a bit horrible in ASCII art ;-)_

    
    
        import random
        import math
    
        canvh = 40
        canvw = 60
        tracecount = 16
        canvas = [[' ' for col in xrange(canvw)] for row in xrange(canvh)]
    
        def randomtrace():
            sigma = random.uniform(4, 20)
            mu = random.gauss(canvw/2, canvw/20)
            k = canvw / (sigma * math.sqrt(2*math.pi))
            s = -1.0 / (2 * sigma * sigma)
            amp = 2.0
            tr = [amp * k * math.exp(s * (x - mu)*(x - mu)) for x in xrange(canvw)]
            # TODO: Random permutations, or Perlin noise.
            return tr
    
        for t in range(tracecount):
            if t == 0 or t == tracecount - 1: 
                continue
            y = t * canvh / tracecount
            trace = randomtrace()
            for x, t in enumerate(trace):
                t = int(t)
                top = y - t
                if top >= 0:
                    canvas[top][x] = '-'
                for i in range(t):
                    top += 1
                    if top >= 0:
                        canvas[top][x] = ' '
    
        for row in canvas:
            line = "".join(row)
            print "  ", line

~~~
mkl
I just spent way too much time making a matplotlib one. Example output:
<http://imgur.com/PtkkESv>

    
    
      import pylab
      import scipy
      
      def gaussian(x, centre, xscale, height):
        return height * scipy.exp(-(2.*xscale*(x-centre))**2)
      
      def triangle(x, centre, xscale, height):
        y = height * (1. - scipy.absolute(xscale*(x-centre)))
        return (y>0) * y
      
      x = scipy.linspace(0., 1., 1501)
      shape = triangle#gaussian#
      
      def generate_noise(x, num_bumps, centre_min, centre_max, xscale_min,
                         xscale_max, height_min, height_max, shape=shape):
        y = scipy.zeros_like(x)
        for i in xrange(num_bumps):
          centre = centre_min + (centre_max-centre_min)*scipy.rand()
          xscale = xscale_min + (xscale_max-xscale_min)*scipy.rand()
          height = height_min + (height_max-height_min)*scipy.rand()
          print centre, xscale, height
          y += shape(x, centre, xscale, height)
        return y
      
      def generate_line(x):
        y = scipy.zeros_like(x)
        y += generate_noise(x, 100, 0., 1., 0., 300., 0., .003)
        y += generate_noise(x, 10, .25, .75, 20., 30., 0., .03)
        y += generate_noise(x, 10, .29, .45, 20., 30., 0., .03)
        return y
      
      num_lines = 85
      line_gap = .015
      for i in xrange(num_lines):
        base_line = (num_lines-i)*line_gap
        y = base_line + generate_line(x)
        poly = pylab.Polygon([(x[0], base_line)]+zip(x, y)+[(x[-1], base_line)],
                             facecolor='k', edgecolor='none', zorder=i)
        pylab.gca().add_patch(poly)
        pylab.plot(x, y, 'w', linewidth=2, zorder=i+.5)
      pylab.gcf().patch.set_facecolor('black')
      pylab.gca().set_axis_bgcolor('k')
      pylab.axis('equal')
      pylab.gcf().set_size_inches(8., 8.)
      pylab.savefig('pulsar.png', facecolor=pylab.gcf().get_facecolor(),
                    edgecolor='none', dpi=150)

~~~
Luyt
Whoah, that's a nice one. I wonder whether the original Arecibo data-set of
the pulsar is still around somewhere. I tried to find it, but I didn't
succeed.

------
nvr219
Such a good album

