THERE IS a scene in 24 Hour Party People, a film about the Manchester music scene in the late 1970s and 1980s, where Tony Wilson, played by Steve Coogan, receives the posters for a Factory Records gig at the Russell Club on the night of the gig itself.

Wilson (Coogan) expresses his admiration for the striking yellow and black artwork by Peter Saville that would eventually become part of the Factory Records aesthetic, before commenting that they are useless as the gig they are promoting has already finished.

According to the line in the film, he quotes William Morris, saying they are beautiful but useless and “nothing useless can be truly beautiful.”