Study Task1 - Establishing a research question

Research Diagram

Album Covers

Pink Floyd 'Ummagumma" 1969 Storm Thorgerson Hipgnosis

• An interesting comparison between the inner space of the regressing picture on the wall and the physical space back into the garden
• Shot 4 pictures, rotating the guys because we didn't want to favour anyone.
• The music was multi-layered, with deeper levels of meaning than any other performers of the time. 
• We wanted to convey layer the idea of layers upon layers with in a photograph.
• We were pretty terrible at graphics, so ready-made cut-out letters seemed like a practical solution.

Considering perspective and making a point reflective of the band through the cover

T-rex 'Electric Warrior' Hipgnosis 1971

• He gave us 2 photographs that he liked and said 'I want something classic, something that people will always remember, like a Black Magic chocolate box' 
• I had learnt airbrushing and sprayed, on an overlay, a soft edge around a photo of Marc and his guitar.
• I then printed the surroundings in black and asked the printers to make the airbrush work gold.

The beginning of computer technology and the change to digitisation and the new possibilites

The Hollies 'Distant Light' 1971 Hipgnosis

• I really felt we let the band and ourselves down and probably agreed to do the work for the wrong reasons
• They had asked for a fantasy, fairy-tale type paintings in the style of 19th Century children's books
• we found the illustrator to create them, knowing they were not very good ideas

Using previous genres of art as inspiration, modernisation

Allan Clarke 'my real name is'Arold' 1972 Storm Thorgerson

• A desire to show who he really was- not the pop star persona that he had cultivated thus far
• He had had a kind of epiphany as to the flakiness of the rock n roll world and wanted to come clean
• imagery of him discarding his clothes to real the real self beneath

The pressure of the pop star world, art being a way of portraying who you want to be, powerful

Pretty Things 'Freeway madness' 1972 Hipgnosis

• Touring around America in pursuit of money and fame
• The image has the different members of the band caught up in a claustrophobic and unbearable situation in the same car
• To the right of the windscreen were the current members who had recorded the album and to the left all the previous music and since the band's incarnation

Stardom and what touring is like, that it takes collaboration to make music