The V&A senior designer on designing the McQueen Savage Beauty graphics

The arrival of the Alexander McQueen retrospective Savage Beauty in London was always going to be special. Its showing at the V&A therefore required some very, very special graphics, and the job of creating them went to the establishment’s senior designer, Jo Glover. She’s worked on numerous campaigns for the V&A, but this one must have been something of a dream project, with so much superb imagery and such a fascinating character to try and convey through physical and digital graphics.

“My approach to the Savage Beauty designs was to capture the slick, high-end luxury feel whilst retaining the dark sense that comes through Lee McQueen’s work,” says Jo. “We wanted to highlight the less known collections as well as the obvious ones. The events like the dinner are very high profile with a number of celebrity guests so lots of beautiful foils and stock were important for the invites and press pack here.”

She adds: “I had to fight for the very macabre ‘savage’ image because it could be seen as intimidating but I think the lead image we used for the poster and print campaign encapsulates the whole idea of both savage and beauty.”

Charlie Smith Design worked with the V&A’s publishing department to create the book accompanying the show – a stunning 336-page tome featuring backstage images, unpublished sketches and research boards from the McQueen archive.

Alexander McQueen: Savage Beauty is on display at the V&A until 2 August.