REVIEW: The Story of Hipgnosis
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) | Official Red Band Trailer | Utopia
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OYQNAk_krQ
During the 1960s and 70s some of the most innovative photography was appearing on vinyl album covers. Much of it was the responsibility of two men: Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell. They met at Cambridge and took a liking to each other’s creativity immediately. They were friends of David Gilmour and Roger Waters and this led to a longstanding relationship with Pink Floyd. Floyd fans all know the sad story of Syd Barrett (an early member of the band whose mind was destroyed by LSD). Rumour has it that one day Syd paid a visit and scrawled the word “hipgnosis” on the wall.
Powell and Thorgerson had just started a business partnership in creative design and were looking for a name: Hipgnosis was just perfect. Hip for “cool”, gnosis for “knowledge”. Po Powell was the photographer and Storm the design genius. For more than a decade their partnership produced some of the most memorable images of the times for some of the greatest rock musicians: Floyd of course, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, 10CC and even the Sex Pistols.
In this day of Photoshopping with generative AI we don’t realise how good these design artists had to be. Everything was pieced together manually (think of those brilliant Terry Gilliam cartoons that featured in every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – no CGI for 40 years – thank God). The advent of the CD marked the death knell for creative album covers and then with streaming the game was over completely.
The brilliant music educator and historian Rick Beato says that today very few people can name all the members of even the most popular bands because they do not have liner notes to read. But in the days of vinyl album covers you would not only know all the band, but the session musicians who played on the albums and a whole lot more. Albums were often themed and the artwork was built around that.
What are some of the most memorable album covers in modern music history? If I say Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon almost all of you will picture it instantly. How about the burning man on Wish You Were Here (the tribute to Syd Barrett)? Was there a more striking album cover than the children crawling up the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland on Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy? What about my personal favourite from Pink Floyd’s Animals of the old Battersea Power Station with a floating giant pink pig in the air? Or Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run with its group of celebrities as escaped criminals? All of these were created by Hipgnosis, and many many more.
So this full length documentary film by Dutchman Anton Corbijn is a glorious romp down memory lane, reminding us older folks of our youth, but bringing to the fore the creative work that has so easily been overlooked in this day when humans are progressively ceding their creative instincts to the machine. Yes, just another “brick in the wall” that we are building between ourselves and the true human soul.
If you want inspiration for your photography or artistic design, watch this film!
Mark Kermode reviews Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xdGLteHyQ
REVIEW: The Story of Hipgnosis
Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) | Official Red Band Trailer | Utopia
www.youtube.com/watch?v=-OYQNAk_krQ
During the 1960s and 70s some of the most innovative photography was appearing on vinyl album covers. Much of it was the responsibility of two men: Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell. They met at Cambridge and took a liking to each other’s creativity immediately. They were friends of David Gilmour and Roger Waters and this led to a longstanding relationship with Pink Floyd. Floyd fans all know the sad story of Syd Barrett (an early member of the band whose mind was destroyed by LSD). Rumour has it that one day Syd paid a visit and scrawled the word “hipgnosis” on the wall.
Powell and Thorgerson had just started a business partnership in creative design and were looking for a name: Hipgnosis was just perfect. Hip for “cool”, gnosis for “knowledge”. Po Powell was the photographer and Storm the design genius. For more than a decade their partnership produced some of the most memorable images of the times for some of the greatest rock musicians: Floyd of course, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, 10CC and even the Sex Pistols.
In this day of Photoshopping with generative AI we don’t realise how good these design artists had to be. Everything was pieced together manually (think of those brilliant Terry Gilliam cartoons that featured in every episode of Monty Python’s Flying Circus – no CGI for 40 years – thank God). The advent of the CD marked the death knell for creative album covers and then with streaming the game was over completely.
The brilliant music educator and historian Rick Beato says that today very few people can name all the members of even the most popular bands because they do not have liner notes to read. But in the days of vinyl album covers you would not only know all the band, but the session musicians who played on the albums and a whole lot more. Albums were often themed and the artwork was built around that.
What are some of the most memorable album covers in modern music history? If I say Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon almost all of you will picture it instantly. How about the burning man on Wish You Were Here (the tribute to Syd Barrett)? Was there a more striking album cover than the children crawling up the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland on Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy? What about my personal favourite from Pink Floyd’s Animals of the old Battersea Power Station with a floating giant pink pig in the air? Or Paul McCartney’s Band on the Run with its group of celebrities as escaped criminals? All of these were created by Hipgnosis, and many many more.
So this full length documentary film by Dutchman Anton Corbijn is a glorious romp down memory lane, reminding us older folks of our youth, but bringing to the fore the creative work that has so easily been overlooked in this day when humans are progressively ceding their creative instincts to the machine. Yes, just another “brick in the wall” that we are building between ourselves and the true human soul.
If you want inspiration for your photography or artistic design, watch this film!
Mark Kermode reviews Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
www.youtube.com/watch?v=D1xdGLteHyQ