Dezeen Magazine

Porn Hub Awards designed by Peter Saville

Peter Saville designs Pornhub Awards to celebrate sexuality without being a cliche

British graphic designer Peter Saville has created a bright orange trophy based on the shape of sex hormones, for this year's Pornhub Awards.

Saville wanted to design an award for video-streaming website Pornhub that celebrated sexuality in a way that wasn't obvious, so he chose to create a form based on the science of sexual attraction.

"The creative challenge was how to design a trophy celebrating sexuality without reiterating the cliched symbolism of erotica," explained Saville.

"I remembered a conversation I had years ago with Suze Randall about the vital importance of 'chemistry' in casting sex scenes – that thought led me to look into the science of erotic attraction."

Pornhub Awards designed by Peter Saville

The award is coloured orange to match Pornhub's branding, and is formed from pentagon with a protruding wavy antenna stacked on top of a hexagon with an extended leg.

Its shape is derived from a combination of the molecular structures of numerous hormones connected to sexual activity.

"Principally I was interested to create a form that references the molecular structure of the main sex hormones including oestrogen and testosterone, but also some of the chemicals that come into play such as serotonin and dopamine," said Saville.

"My intention was to maintain a degree of ambiguity in the final form the award took, with respect to the sexual spectrum so impressively encompassed by the award category line-up."

Pornhub Awards designed by Peter Saville

The awards were fabricated by London creative studio Morph. Although it is not directly visually representing sexual activity, Saville believes that the form of the award's evoke sexuality.

"Sculpturally the award has a bio-fluidity about it, abstractly evoking orifices, penetration, sperm and bondage toys…I think if you put several of them together they might actually reproduce!"

Saville follows Kanye West, who designed the trophies for last year's inaugural awards.

"Kanye and I worked together some years ago and I think it's great that we have now both created a Pornhub Award," added Saville.

Saville is a responsible for designing a host of iconic album cover designs including Joy Division's 1979 album Unknown Pleasures.

He has recently collaborated with Riccardo Tisci to design Burberry's new logo and worked with Raf Simons to redesign the Calvin Klein logo.