Hipgnosis
[dummy-text]
Hipgnosis
Jump to navigation
Jump to search
This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2011) (Learn how and when to remove this template message) |
Hipgnosis was an English art design group based in London[1] that specialised in creating cover art for the albums of rock musicians and bands. Notable commissions included work for Pink Floyd, T. Rex, the Pretty Things, Black Sabbath, UFO, 10cc, Bad Company, Led Zeppelin, AC/DC, Scorpions, Yes, The Nice, Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Def Leppard, Paul McCartney & Wings, the Alan Parsons Project, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Electric Light Orchestra, the Police, Rainbow, Styx, Pezband, XTC and Al Stewart.
Hipgnosis consisted primarily of Cambridge natives Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, and later Peter Christopherson.[2] The group dissolved in 1983, though Thorgerson worked on album designs until his death on 18 April 2013, and Powell works in film and video, most notably with Paul McCartney, The Who, and Monty Python's Flying Circus, and is the creative director for both Pink Floyd and its member David Gilmour.
Contents
1 History
2 Style
3 Discography
4 See also
5 References
6 External links
History[edit]
In 1968, Thorgerson and Powell were approached by their friends in Pink Floyd to design the cover for the group's second album, A Saucerful of Secrets. This led to additional work for EMI, including photos and album covers for the Pretty Things, Free, Toe Fat and the Gods. Being film and art school students, they were able to use the darkroom at the Royal College of Art, but when they completed school, they had to set up their own facilities. They built a small darkroom in Powell's bathroom, but shortly thereafter, in early 1970, rented space and built a studio located at 6 Denmark Street.[3]
When first starting out, Powell and Thorgerson adopted their name from graffiti they found on the door to their apartment. Thorgerson said they liked the word, not only for punning on "hypnosis," but for possessing "a nice sense of contradiction, of an impossible co-existence, from Hip = new, cool, and groovy, and Gnostic, relating to ancient learning."[4]
Hipgnosis gained major international prominence in 1973 with their famed cover design for Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon. The final design was one of several versions prepared for the band to choose from, but according to drummer Nick Mason, the 'prism/pyramid' design was the immediate and unanimous choice. The record itself was wildly successful—it became one of the biggest-selling and longest-charting albums of all time, putting it in the hands of millions of fans, and it has since been hailed as one of the best album covers of all time (VH1 rated the cover as No. 4, in 2003). After that, the firm became in-demand, and did many covers for high-profile bands and artists such as Led Zeppelin, Genesis, UFO, Black Sabbath, Peter Gabriel, the Alan Parsons Project, and Yes. They also designed the cover for the original UK paperback edition of Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (Adams would describe Thorgerson as "The best album designer in the world"),[5] as well as the original UK hardcover edition of Norman Spinrad's Bug Jack Barron.[6]
Peter Christopherson joined Hipgnosis as an assistant in 1974, and later became a full partner. The firm employed many assistants and other staff members over the years. Of particular note were freelance designers and illustrators Richard Evans,[7]George Hardie,[8] and Richard Manning.[9]
One notable fact was that Hipgnosis did not have a set fee for designing an album cover but instead asked the artists to "pay what they thought it was worth",[10] a policy that only occasionally backfired according to Thorgerson in his book on album cover design.[citation needed]
Style[edit]
Hipgnosis' approach to album design was strongly photography-oriented, and they pioneered the use of many innovative visual and packaging techniques. In particular, Thorgerson & Powell's surreal, elaborately manipulated photos (utilizing darkroom tricks, multiple exposures, airbrush retouching, and mechanical cut-and-paste techniques) were a film-based forerunner of what would, much later, be called photoshopping. Hipgnosis used primarily Hasselblad medium format cameras for their work, the square film format being especially suited to album cover imagery.
Hipgnosis covers were noted for their quirky humour, such as the cover for the Pink Floyd double-LP compilation A Nice Pair, which featured an array of visual puns. Such humour once angered Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, when Hipgnosis created a visual pun based on "(tennis) racquet"/"(noise) racket" for the album Houses of the Holy. Hipgnosis almost lost Led Zeppelin as a client as a result.[citation needed]
Another trademark was that many of their cover photos told "stories" directly related to the album's lyrics, often based on puns or double meanings of words in the album title. Since both Powell and Thorgerson were film students, they often used models as "actors" and staged the photos in a highly theatrical manner. Hipgnosis covers rarely featured artists' photos on the outside, and most were in a gatefold cover format to provide ample space for their slickly photographed tableaux.
Many of Hipgnosis' covers also featured distinctively "high tech" pen and ink logos and illustrations (often by graphic designer George Hardie), stickers, fancy inner sleeves, and other packaging bonuses. One of the unique extras created by Hipgnosis was the specially printed inner sleeve for Led Zeppelin's In Through the Out Door LP, a "black and white" affair that magically turned to colour when dampened with water (tying in with the main cover's photographic theme).
Discography[edit]
Year | Artist | Album |
---|---|---|
1968 | Pink Floyd | A Saucerful of Secrets |
1968 | Alexis Korner | A New Generation of Blues |
1968 | The Gods | Genesis |
1968 | Pepe Jaramillo | Till There Was You |
1969 | Pink Floyd | More |
1969 | The Gods | To Samuel a Son |
1969 | Pink Floyd | Ummagumma |
1969 | Panama Limited Jug Band | Panama Limited Jug Band |
1970 | The Greatest Show on Earth | Horizons |
1970 | Pink Floyd | Atom Heart Mother |
1970 | Quatermass | Quatermass |
1970 | The Pretty Things | Parachute |
1970 | The Greatest Show on Earth | The Going's Easy |
1970 | Syd Barrett | The Madcap Laughs |
1970 | The Nice | Five Bridges |
1970 | Toe Fat | Toe Fat |
1970 | Cochise | Cochise |
1970 | Harvest Records artists | Picnic – A Breath of Fresh Air |
1970 | Panama Limited | Indian Summer |
1970 | Sounds Nice | Love at First Sight |
1970 | Gravy Train | Gravy Train |
1971 | T. Rex | Electric Warrior |
1971 | Toe Fat | Toe Fat 2 |
1971 | Trees | On the Shore |
1971 | Marvin, Welch & Farrar | Marvin, Welch & Farrar |
1971 | The Nice | Elegy |
1971 | Pink Floyd | Meddle |
1971 | Electric Light Orchestra | The Electric Light Orchestra |
1971 | Audience | House on the Hill |
1971 | Edgar Broughton Band | Edgar Broughton Band |
1971 | Wishbone Ash | Pilgrimage |
1971 | Climax Blues Band | Tightly Knit |
1971 | Tear Gas | Tear Gas |
1971 | Stackridge | Stackridge |
1971 | Daddy Longlegs | Oakdown Farm |
1972 | Flash | Flash |
1972 | Wishbone Ash | Argus |
1972 | The Nice | Autumn '67 – Spring '68 |
1972 | Fumble | Fumble |
1972 | The Hollies | Distant Light |
1972 | Renaissance | Prologue |
1972 | Edgar Broughton Band | Inside Out |
1972 | Audience | Lunch |
1972 | The Pretty Things | Freeway Madness |
1972 | Pink Floyd | Obscured by Clouds |
1972 | Blue Mink | A Time of Change |
1972 | Roger Cook | Meanwhile...Back at the World |
1972 | Glencoe | Glencoe |
1972 | Danta | Danta |
1973 | Electric Light Orchestra | ELO 2 |
1973 | Pink Floyd | Dark Side of the Moon |
1973 | Roger Cook | Minstrel in Flight |
1973 | Electric Light Orchestra | On the Third Day |
1973 | Edgar Broughton Band | Oora |
1973 | Al Stewart | Past, Present and Future |
1973 | Argent | In Deep |
1973 | Led Zeppelin | Houses of the Holy |
1973 | Audience | You Can't Beat 'em |
1973 | Roy Harper | Lifemask |
1973 | Renaissance | Ashes Are Burning |
1973 | Wishbone Ash | Wishbone Four |
1973 | Wishbone Ash | Live Dates |
1973 | Flash | Out of Our Hands |
1973 | Various artists | Music from Free Creek |
1973 | Humble Pie | Thunderbox |
1973 | Emerson, Lake & Palmer | Trilogy |
1973 | Vinegar Joe | Rock 'n Roll Gypsies |
1973 | Babe Ruth | Amar Caballero |
1973 | Pink Floyd | A Nice Pair |
1973 | Public Foot The Roman | Public Foot The Roman |
1974 | Sharks | Jab It in Yore Eye |
1974 | Uno | Uno |
1974 | Genesis | The Lamb Lies Down On Broadway |
1974 | Wishbone Ash | There's the Rub |
1974 | Nazareth | Rampant |
1974 | Renaissance | Turn of the Cards |
1974 | Roy Harper | Valentine |
1974 | Peter Frampton | Somethin's Happening |
1974 | Roy Harper | Flashes from the Archives of Oblivion |
1974 | Bad Company | Bad Company |
1974 | Blue Mink | Fruity |
1974 | Fumble | Poetry in Lotion |
1974 | Syd Barrett | Syd Barrett |
1974 | 10cc | Sheet Music |
1974 | The Pretty Things | Silk Torpedo |
1974 | UFO | Phenomenon |
1975 | UFO | Force It |
1975 | The Pretty Things | Savage Eye |
1975 | Pink Floyd | Wish You Were Here |
1975 | Bad Company | Straight Shooter |
1975 | Renaissance | Scheherazade and Other Stories |
1975 | Roy Harper | HQ |
1975 | Edgar Broughton Band | A Bunch of 45s |
1975 | The Greatest Show on Earth | The Greatest Show on Earth |
1975 | 10cc | The Original Soundtrack |
1975 | The Pretty Things | S.F. Sorrow / Parachute, double reissue (UK version only) |
1975 | Al Stewart | Modern Times |
1975 | Wings | Venus and Mars |
1975 | Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias | Alberto y Lost Trios Paranoias |
1975 | Caravan | Cunning Stunts |
1975 | Sassafras | Wheelin 'n' Dealin |
1975 | Bob Sargeant | First Starring Role |
1975 | Strife | Rush |
1975 | The Winkies | The Winkies |
1976 | AC/DC | Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap (International edition) |
1976 | Golden Earring | To the Hilt |
1976 | Montrose | Jump on It |
1976 | Kevin Coyne | Heartburn |
1976 | Wings | Wings at the Speed of Sound |
1976 | Al Stewart | Year of the Cat |
1976 | The Alan Parsons Project | Tales of Mystery and Imagination |
1976 | Black Sabbath | Technical Ecstasy |
1976 | Genesis | A Trick of the Tail |
1976 | 10cc | How Dare You! |
1976 | Led Zeppelin | The Song Remains the Same |
1976 | Led Zeppelin | Presence |
1976 | Brand X | Unorthodox Behaviour |
1976 | Wings | Wings over America |
1976 | Jon Anderson | Olias of Sunhillow |
1976 | Nazareth | Close Enough for Rock 'n' Roll |
1976 | UFO | No Heavy Petting |
1976 | Wishbone Ash | New England |
1976 | Genesis | Wind & Wuthering |
1977 | Wishbone Ash | Front Page News |
1977 | Justin Hayward | Songwriter |
1977 | UFO | Lights Out |
1977 | The Alan Parsons Project | I Robot |
1977 | 10cc | Deceptive Bends |
1977 | Roy Harper | Bullinamingvase |
1977 | Brand X | Moroccan Roll |
1977 | Brand X | Livestock |
1977 | Sammy Hagar | Sammy Hagar |
1977 | Al Stewart | The Early Years |
1977 | Sammy Hagar | Musical Chairs |
1977 | Bad Company | Burnin' Sky |
1977 | Pink Floyd | Animals |
1977 | Electric Light Orchestra | The Light Shines On |
1977 | Peter Gabriel | Peter Gabriel (I) (aka "Car") |
1977 | Yes | Going for the One |
1977 | Fabulous Poodles | Mirror Stars |
1977 | Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel | Face to Face: A Live Recording |
1977 | Hawkwind | Quark, Strangeness and Charm |
1977 | Space | Deliverance |
1977 | Status Quo | Live! |
1977 | Strawbs | Deadlines |
1977 | The Moody Blues | Caught Live + 5 |
1978 | Pezband | Laughing in the Dark |
1978 | Be-Bop Deluxe | Drastic Plastic |
1978 | Richard Wright | Wet Dream |
1978 | David Gilmour | David Gilmour |
1978 | Styx | Pieces of Eight |
1978 | Wings | Wings Greatest |
1978 | Todd Rundgren | Back to the Bars |
1978 | XTC | Go 2 |
1978 | Robin Trower | Caravan to Midnight |
1978 | Yes | Tormato |
1978 | Genesis | …And Then There Were Three… |
1978 | Wishbone Ash | No Smoke Without Fire |
1978 | Peter Gabriel | Peter Gabriel (II) (aka "Scratch") |
1978 | Al Stewart | Time Passages |
1978 | The Alan Parsons Project | Pyramid |
1978 | Black Sabbath | Never Say Die! |
1978 | Renaissance | A Song for All Seasons |
1978 | Synergy | Cords |
1978 | UFO | Obsession |
1978 | 10cc | Bloody Tourists |
1978 | The Motors | Approved by the Motors (version 2)[11] |
1979 | UFO | Strangers in the Night |
1979 | Scorpions | Lovedrive |
1979 | The Alan Parsons Project | Eve |
1979 | Bad Company | Desolation Angels |
1979 | The Dukes | The Dukes |
1979 | Edgar Broughton Band | Parlez-Vous English (as The Broughtons) |
1979 | 10cc | Greatest Hits 1972–1978 |
1979 | Led Zeppelin | In Through the Out Door |
1979 | Brand X | Product |
1979 | Gary Brooker | No More Fear of Flying |
1979 | Steve Hillage | Live Herald |
1979 | Godley & Creme | Freeze Frame |
1979 | UK | Danger Money |
1979 | Mick Taylor | Mick Taylor |
1979 | Ashra | Correlations |
1979 | Ralph McTell | Slide Away the Screen |
1980 | The Pretty Things | Cross Talk |
1980 | Brand X | Do They Hurt? |
1980 | Mike Rutherford | Smallcreep's Day |
1980 | 10cc | Look Hear? |
1980 | Peter Gabriel | Peter Gabriel (III) (aka "Melt") |
1980 | Scorpions | Animal Magnetism |
1980 | UFO | No Place to Run |
1980 | John Wetton | Caught in the Crossfire |
1980 | Wishbone Ash | Just Testing |
1980 | Leo Sayer | Living in a Fantasy |
1980 | The Police | De Do Do Do, De Da Da Da |
1981 | UFO | The Wild, the Willing and the Innocent |
1981 | Pink Floyd | A Collection of Great Dance Songs |
1981 | Rainbow | Difficult to Cure |
1981 | Nick Mason | Fictitious Sports |
1981 | Roger Taylor | Fun in Space |
1981 | Def Leppard | High 'n' Dry |
1981 | Yumi Matsutoya | Sakuban Oaisimashō |
1981 | Herman Rarebell | Nip in the Bud |
1982 | Paul McCartney | Tug of War |
1982 | Rainbow | Straight Between the Eyes |
1982 | The Alan Parsons Project | Eye in the Sky |
1982 | Bad Company | Rough Diamonds |
1982 | Led Zeppelin | Coda |
See also[edit]
- Category:Album covers by Hipgnosis
- Category:Albums with cover art by Hipgnosis
References[edit]
^ "Helen Donlon interviews Hipgnosis". londongrip.co.uk..mw-parser-output cite.citationfont-style:inherit.mw-parser-output qquotes:"""""""'""'".mw-parser-output code.cs1-codecolor:inherit;background:inherit;border:inherit;padding:inherit.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-free abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/65/Lock-green.svg/9px-Lock-green.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-limited a,.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-registration abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d6/Lock-gray-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-gray-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-lock-subscription abackground:url("//upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/aa/Lock-red-alt-2.svg/9px-Lock-red-alt-2.svg.png")no-repeat;background-position:right .1em center.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registrationcolor:#555.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription span,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration spanborder-bottom:1px dotted;cursor:help.mw-parser-output .cs1-hidden-errordisplay:none;font-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-visible-errorfont-size:100%.mw-parser-output .cs1-subscription,.mw-parser-output .cs1-registration,.mw-parser-output .cs1-formatfont-size:95%.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-left,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-leftpadding-left:0.2em.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-right,.mw-parser-output .cs1-kern-wl-rightpadding-right:0.2em
^ The photodesigns of Hipgnosis The Goodbye look. Vermillion Hutchinson Publishing Group. 1982
ISBN 0 091506417
^ Gioia, Ted (8 December 2014). "The Golden Age of Rock Album Covers". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 8 December 2014.
^ Thorgerson, S: Hipgnosis • Walk Away René, page 87. Paper Tiger, 1978.
^ Sweeting, Adam (18 April 2013). "Storm Thorgerson dies aged 69: 'the best album designer in the world' – Art and design – guardian.co.uk". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 19 April 2013.
^ "Bug Jack Barron – book 1970". Hipgnosiscovers.com.
^ "Biography". rdevans.com. 2011. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 22 October 2011.
^ "George Hardie | Alumni and associates | Arts and Humanities". Arts.brighton.ac.uk. 2016-01-22. Retrieved 2017-04-29.
^ discogs, list of albums artists retouched
^ Perrin, Jean-Éric; Rey, Jerôme; Verlant, Gilles (2009). Les Miscellanées du rock (in French). Paris: Éditions Fetjaine / La Martinière. p. 154. ISBN 9782354251307.[L]es deux de Hipgnosis avaient la particularité de ne pas réclamer de cachet fixe, mais de demander aux groupes de leur payer ce qu'ils estimaient être la valeur de leur travail!
(The italics are present in the original.)
^ Version 1 of the album shows an image of all four members. This first cover was designed by Cooke Key Associates. After Ricky Slaughter and Bram Tchaikovsky left The Motors the album was reissued with a new cover. That new cover is designed by Hipgnosis.
External links[edit]
- Allmusic album credits
- Unofficial Hipgnosis website
Categories:
- Graphic design studios
- Pink Floyd
- Album-cover and concert-poster artists
- Design companies established in 1968
- Design companies disestablished in 1983
- 1968 establishments in England
- 1983 disestablishments in England
(window.RLQ=window.RLQ||).push(function()mw.config.set("wgPageParseReport":"limitreport":"cputime":"0.540","walltime":"0.691","ppvisitednodes":"value":4572,"limit":1000000,"ppgeneratednodes":"value":0,"limit":1500000,"postexpandincludesize":"value":96893,"limit":2097152,"templateargumentsize":"value":12943,"limit":2097152,"expansiondepth":"value":13,"limit":40,"expensivefunctioncount":"value":12,"limit":500,"unstrip-depth":"value":1,"limit":20,"unstrip-size":"value":21690,"limit":5000000,"entityaccesscount":"value":1,"limit":400,"timingprofile":["100.00% 481.829 1 -total"," 31.43% 151.417 1 Template:Reflist"," 16.23% 78.182 4 Template:Cite_web"," 15.64% 75.352 62 Template:Sortname"," 12.30% 59.277 2 Template:Navbox_musical_artist"," 11.25% 54.197 2 Template:Navbox"," 11.03% 53.143 1 Template:Authority_control"," 11.00% 52.990 1 Template:Pink_Floyd"," 8.18% 39.393 1 Template:Refimprove"," 7.92% 38.161 2 Template:Citation_needed"],"scribunto":"limitreport-timeusage":"value":"0.208","limit":"10.000","limitreport-memusage":"value":4148761,"limit":52428800,"cachereport":"origin":"mw1323","timestamp":"20181114234730","ttl":1900800,"transientcontent":false);mw.config.set("wgBackendResponseTime":810,"wgHostname":"mw1323"););