Hipgnosis

In 1968, Thorgerson and Powell were on friendly terms with Pink Floyd , and they asked them to come up with a cover for their second album, A Saucerful of Secrets . After that, orders were received from the EMI company, according to which it was necessary to develop several covers for the albums of Free , Toe Fat and The Gods . Young designers at that time were students of the Royal College of Art (studied film production and painting) and could use the dark room of this educational institution to develop photographs, but after graduation they had to acquire their own studio. First they arranged a small development room in Powell’s bathroom, and then, in the beginning of 1970, they rented a separate room and moved there.

Starting work at the new studio, Torgerson and Powell immediately noticed the inscription “Hipgnosis” painted on the front door. They liked the word not only because of its consonance with “hypnosis” ( Russian hypnosis ), but rather because of the unusual combination of the word “hip” ( Russian new, fashionable ) with gnosis denoting special spiritual knowledge ^[1] .

The peak of the company's popularity came in 1973, when they developed the cover for the Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon album. Designers presented the musicians with several options. According to drummer Nick Mason, the pyramid prism design was the most suitable and was unanimously supported. The album was a huge success, broke all records for sales and duration of stay in the charts, and the cover was recognized as one of the best for the entire existence of the music industry (in 2003, the music channel VH1 in fourth place on the list of greatest covers of all time). Since then, the studio has gained fame, and orders have been received from such musicians as Led Zeppelin , Genesis , UFO , Black Sabbath , Peter Gabriel and The Alan Parsons Project . They also designed the cover for the book “The Hitchhiker 's Guide to the Galaxy ” by the English science fiction writer Douglas Adams .

In 1974, Peter Christofferson joined the team as an assistant and later became a full partner. In those years, the studio hired many artists, photographers and other employees - the most famous of them George Hardy, Richard Evans, Colin Algie and Richard Manning.

A rather remarkable circumstance is the fact that Hipgnosis never required any specific amounts for work on album design, leaving customers the right to pay depending on how much the musicians liked the final design ^[2] .

• Studio Album List
• Official Storm Torgerson Website
• Unofficial site of the studio Hipgnosis