Design Gallery

Head of Art at St Ambrose, Mr P D Hancock would produce hand-coloured idesigned publicity posters for college events.

St Ambrose's first Royal Mail Stamps

Peter Saville and Keith Breeden both attended St Ambrose 1967-1974 and studied Art under Mr Hancock

The ten selected classic Album covers released as stamps

October 2009: Former St Ambrose pupils Peter Saville and Keith Breeden have their album cover designs selected as two of a group of ten classic album covers to be made into Royal Mail stamps.

Peter Saville's cover art for New Order's 1983 Album, "Power, Corruption and Lies",

and Keith Breeden's design for Pink Floyd's 1994 album "The Division Bell" were selected.

Keith Breeden's original design for Pink Floyd's album "The Division Bell"

Fact 73: Peter Saville's 1983 cover for "Power, Corruption and Lies"

St Ambrose's 1974 Design Students

The British New Wave was born at a boys' school near Manchester

Malcolm, Peter . . . and Keith (extract)

Over the years, Malcolm Garrett and Peter Saville have often mentioned in interviews that they studied together at Manchester Polytechnic in the 1970s. Less well known, though it sometimes comes up in passing, is that they also attended the same school, St Ambrose College, an independent Catholic grammar in Hale Barns, Cheshire. Barely remarked at all, however, is that Keith Breeden, a third, not so renowned contributor to Britain’s graphic ‘new wave’, was a member of the same A level art class. At school, as both Saville and Garrett affirm, Breeden was a significant influence on them. The only known photograph of the three fledgling designers in the school art room is printed tantalisingly small in Saville’s recent monograph, "Designed by Peter Saville".

It’s odd, in a way, that more has not been made of this surprising confluence of talent. In a class of just six teenagers taking Art, half of the group went on to devote their efforts to album cover design and two became leading figures with national and international reputations. Where many once-celebrated new wave design teams of the early 1980s – Rocking Russian, Shoot That Tiger, Town and Country Planning – are all but forgotten now, Saville and Garrett have stayed the course. The national press coverage generated by the Saville monograph and the Design Museum’s retrospective – even the ultra-highbrow London Review of Books was moved to break its usual silence on design – confirmed just how deeply his work affected those who consumed it at the time.

It’s still too early, though, to determine with any precision how significant the impact of Garrett and Saville was for British design. Saville’s book and exhibition excited impressionistic claims by journalists that his designs had ignited a taste revolution in the high streets of Britain and, not surprisingly, Saville was ready to agree . . .

eye magazine

Graphic Design by Keith Breeden

attended St Ambrose until 1974

Graphic design until 1994: Album Art for ABC, Duran Duran, Scritti Politti,

The Mission, Roxy Music, The Cult, Pink Floyd

Music Week Awards: First Prize for Album Sleeve 1986

Music Week Awards: First Prizes for Single Sleeve 1985 and 1986

Since 1995, Portraitist, elected to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters

Keith Breeden's Portrait of Sir John Temple, President of The Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh

Keith Breeden, Cover Design for Pink Floyd's Division Bell, 1994

For the Division Bell, long-time Floyd collaborator Storm Thorgerson developed the album artwork from Keith Breeden's original concept. He erected two large metal heads each the height of a Double-decker bus in a field near Ely. The sculptures were positioned close together, and photographed in profile, to give the illusion that not only were they either facing or talking to each other, they also presented the viewer with a third face. The sculptures were devised by Keith Breeden, and constructed by John Robertson. Ely Cathedral is visible on the horizon. Pink Floyd sold 12 million copies of the Division Bell. The sculptures are now in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio.

The album was released in the UK and US on CD, vinyl, and Compact Cassette, each with its own format and label-specific design. Two 7.5-metre (25 ft) stone sculptures were made by Aden Hynes for the cassette releases, and photographed in the same style as the metal heads. The artwork inside the CD lyric booklet revolves around a similar theme, with the image of the two heads formed by various other objects, such as newspapers ("A Great Day for Freedom"), coloured glass ("Poles Apart"), and boxing gloves ("Lost for Words").

Keith Breeden.com

Graphic Design by Malcolm Garrett

Royal Designer for Industry (RDI)

Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts in London

Creative Director of Dynamo London

Malcolm Garrett attended St Ambrose until 1974.

"Malcolm Garrett is a British graphic designer who worked on a number on iconic album and single sleeves of the 1980s from acts including Duran Duran, Simple Minds, Peter Gabriel, The Buzzcocks and of course, Magazine."

Tour posters by Malcolm Garrett

Malcolm Garrett's cover for Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen In Love?"

Duran Duran, Duran Duran, 1981

Duran Duran's "Rio" (1982) went double platinum

Duran Duran, Seven and the Ragged Tiger, 1983

Simple Minds, Live in the City of Light, 1987

Malcolm Garrett is a communications designer with three decades of experience, including over fifteen years working in interactive media, his work is widely regarded as having a seminal influence on the development of contemporary UK graphic design.

He founded the interactive communications company AMX in 1994, which under his creative leadership won awards for creativity, business effectiveness, and technical excellence, across a range of disciplines from internet to interactive TV to handheld computing. Prior to AMX Malcolm had founded and co-directed Assorted Images, designing for artists such as Buzzcocks, Duran Duran, Culture Club, Simple Minds, and pioneering digital and interactive work with Peter Gabriel. In 2003/4 Malcolm joined Immersion Studios in Toronto to develop interfaces for interactive cinema and collaborative learning software, and returned to the UK in 2005 to join AIG.

He is a Royal Designer for Industry, was nominated for the Prince Philip Designers Prize in 1998, and is a Visiting Professor at the University of the Arts London. He has judged many awards including Design Week, D&AD, BAFTA, BIMA.