“Scourge of management, record companies and album sleeve printers; Champion of bands, music, great ideas and high, infuriatingly high standards; Defender of the art over commerce at all times.” - Nick Mason, Pink Floyd on Hipgnosis
Celebrated photographer, creative director and filmmaker Anton Corbijn's first feature documentary Squaring The Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) tells the story of Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey "Po" Powell, the creative geniuses behind the iconic album art design studio, Hipgnosis, responsible for some of the most recognizable album covers of all time.
Catch this riveting account of music’s iconic artwork and the creative geniuses who designed it in cinemas from and On Demand from 14 July. On Blu-Ray and DVD from 7 Aug. Click below to book tickets.
Watch the trailer
Ahead of its release, we’re taking a deep dive into the iconic design studio and the countless album covers they worked on.
Who are hipgnosis?
Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell, are the design and photography duo who formed Hipgnosis. It came about in Cambridge during the ferment of the sixties and became rock royalty during the boom time of the seventies. They conjured into existence sights that no one had previously thought possible, produced visuals that popularised music that had previously been considered fringe, and were at the white-hot center of the maddest, funniest and most creative era in the history of popular music.
Po and Storm shared a flat in South Kensington, London during the Summer of Love in 1967, and by ’68 Po and Storm had formed the fledgling art house and studio Hipgnosis, a photo-design company for album sleeves. One of the first covers they created was Pink Floyd’s A Saucerful of Secrets and the rest, as they say, is history.
who did they design covers for?
Hipgnosis, went from a two-man operation in the late sixties to become rock royalty in their own right by the seventies and firmly at the centre of one of the most creative, fertile eras of rock. Setting up shop on Denmark Street, in London’s Soho, the musician’s alley was the perfect place for the studio to create and conjure images that nobody had previously thought possible.
Hipgnosis went on to design every Pink Floyd album sleeve (except The Wall and Final Cut) including arguably the most iconic album cover of all time – The Dark Side of The Moon. Other rock bands who graced their studio at 6 Denmark Street in Soho during the next 15 years – the halcyon days of vinyl-included: