ART FOCUS: Storm Thorgerson

Today's post is going to be about the wonderful late Storm Thorgerson. He was an album designer and has designed some of the most famous albums in history, and his album artwork definitely has a lot to do with the popularity of the albums. 

He was a founder of Hipgnosis, and designed album covers at the time for many bands and artists such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Yes, Styx and more. His art work has definitely influenced many and is extremely iconic. I am a huge admirer of his, so here are a few of my favourites!

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Absolution - Muse 

Not only is Absolution one of my favourite albums of all time, I also love the album cover. It shows a man looking up confusedly at the sky, with shadows of floating bodies in the sky on the ground around him. 

It apparently is a scenario of the man looking at the chosen ones to be taken away from the earth during an apocalypse, and he is left behind. This definitely goes along with the apocalyptic theme of the album.

 I love how the people vary on different versions of the album; i.e. the LP, the album tour DVD,  and the releases different countries. It is an all round beautiful album with a thoughtful and brilliant album cover. 

Dark Side of The Moon - Pink Floyd 

This album is a masterpiece. It's one of the most famous albums in the world and one of the most sold too. This was Storm's first graphic album cover as he was more of a photographic designer, but he took the challenge, and succeeded. I personally agree that it definitely is worth the hype, and the cover really does complete this album. It's unbelievably iconic and is to be found on t shirts in most clothing shops and even to non-fans of Pink Floyd this album cover is extremely familiar. This album artwork is mostly inspired by the band's  light shows,  and reflects the meaning and message of the album. The heartbeat on the inside of the sleeve is another aspect of the album, and also following the colour scheme. 

It is again a very thoughtful album cover, and its definitely evident that this is one of the most famous album covers in the world. 

Only revolutions - Biffy Clyro

Not only is this a stunning album, the cover is wonderfully simple, but at the same time catches the eye. The cover has a man holding a blue flag and a woman a red one, facing each other. It represents the strength of the album lyrically and the message, as the flags are huge and free and strong, and I really think it suits with the album well. It also symbolises the sexes. This shows how Storm could adjust to newer bands and music, which also applies to Muse, and even then always made sure his ideas were new and original. 

Wish you were here - Pink Floyd

Again, we have Pink Floyd. Storm designed many of Pink Floyd's album covers, including 'Animals' and 'Ummagumma', but this possibly being my favourite. Wish You Were Here is my favourite Pink Floyd album and one of my favourite albums in general.

 The album is themed around absence, and also partly on previous band member Syd Barrett's absence, with the song 'Shine On You Crazy Diamond' as a tribute to him. Even though the album is just 5 tracks, it's beautifully done and I will never get tired of it. Back to the artwork, Storm went to a number of places around the world to get shots for this album art, including the inner sleeve artwork. They all represent the 4 Elements; earth, fire, air, and water. The cover was shot outside Warner Bros. studios in California of a man shaking hands with a man on fire. It goes along with the theme of 'getting burned' in the music industry, which is also a strong element to the album, i.e. 'Have a Cigar' and how easily used people can be for money. 

The man on fire turned after the shot and walked out of the frame after the fire accidentally went in his face, and the photographer took a picture of his exit, coincidentally but perfectly symbolising absence once again. The album and the whole artwork is completely genius, and this is definitely my favourite of all of Storm's  work. 

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If you have any interest in Storm and his work I'd highly recommend the book 'Gathering Storm' which was released in October 2013, and is a book of his work with also his own commentary. It's a very interesting and wonderful book, and it shows how varied and unusual his work was, which is why I admire him.

I apologize for the length of this post, but I hope it was somewhat interesting, and thank you very much for reading! 

- Rhianwen 

(Disclaimer* no copyright intended for the photos!)