The Design Company That Took Album Art to New Heights

In the early 1980s, Aubrey Powell, a co-founder of the groundbreaking British design firm Hipgnosis, traveled to Hawaii to shoot the cover for British rock band 10cc’s album “Look Hear?” The shoot involved a sheep seated on an old-fashioned psychiatrist’s couch which had to be constructed by a Honolulu props company. After an unsuccessful first day due to a nervous sheep and impeding ocean waves, a tranquilizer was administered by a veterinarian on day two, allowing for success. The final cost of the cover, including airfare and a sheep wrangler, was about $26,000. One version of the sleeve design included the words “Are You Normal?” displayed in large capital letters, making the photo of the sheep on the couch appear postage-stamp sized.

Anton Corbijn, a Dutch filmmaker and director of “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis),” a documentary on the design firm which features new interviews with Powell, all three surviving members of Pink Floyd, Robert Plant and Jimmy Page of Led Zeppelin, among others, had a slightly different view. Though the singer and bassist of 10cc, Graham Gouldman, did not remember the meaning of the album picture, he acknowledged the brilliance and said, “It’s art. So it’s got to be done.”

Hipgnosis became known for absurd lengths of travel in pursuit of the perfect LP sleeve in the era before Photoshop. Between 1968 and 1983, Hipgnosis created 415 album covers, including Pink Floyd’s “Animals” which featured a 40-foot inflatable pig photographed floating between London’s Battersea Power Station chimneys. Unfortunately, the single cable affixed to the pig snapped, and the balloon drifted into the flight zone for Heathrow Airport. Hipgnosis used a photo collage instead to achieve their desired effect.

The close working relationship between Powell and Hipgnosis co-founder Storm Thorgerson, who paired together in the Cambridge, England, art scene of the 1960s and did many of Pink Floyd’s album covers (including “The Dark Side of the Moon”), leads much of the film. Thorgerson, regarded as a stubborn genius, was known to have driven the record executives almost to apoplexy but the artists recognized the importance of the ideas he brought to the cover art.

Hipgnosis came to an end at the dawn of a new era when music videos and CDs ruled, and Thorgerson and Powell parted ways due to a falling out over money. They reunited after Thorgerson’s illness, but he died of cancer at age 69. Despite their separation, Powell says he’s encouraged by the fact that Hipgnosis’s album covers were ultimately appreciated as fine art. The covers focused on creative and unique ideas rather than just putting a picture of the band together with their name in big letters, making them truly one of a kind.