Storm Thorgerson: Iconic Album Designer
I was looking up iconic graphic designers when I stumbled onto the work of designer Storm Thorgerson. He was a founding member of the art collective Hipgnosis, who designed a lot of rock album covers in the 1970's and 1980's. He did everything for real, like the cover above for A Momentary Lape of Reason by Pink Floyd. All 700 of those beds were actually set out along the beach in England for the cover shot. If he couldn't get the lighting just right, or had more ideas than he could fit into a photograph, he would mess around with it using photo-developing tricks, airbrushing color in, or making a sort of collage. Before I read about Storm, I didn't even begin to think of how labor-intensive it was for him to produce these images. Photo editing programs aren't easy to use, but they sure do take a lot less time that the way he did it. This, personally, is very inspirational. His techniques were photoshop before photoshop. From the perspective of a designer, there are many benefits from technological advances. Saving time and money are some of the biggest benefits I can think of. But it's really impressive to me that somebody can take a concept in their head, and then put in the effort of trucking 700 beds onto a rural beach just to realize his vision. This man is passionate about his work and has a lot of record covers and a successful career to prove it.
I really liked your post, it was interesting and left me wanting more! Hearing about different strategies that this artist used in photography was very impressive; it just shows that hard work and dedication help create an exceptional result. Your post also made me think about graphic design in a new way. I can definitely see now the talent needed for this occupation, and it made me see that this is a form of art and expression. The pictures you added also contributed a lot; giving visuals helped me to see the time put into the photos that you were describing. Great job!
ReplyDeleteThis was an awesome post. It's amazing to see how graphic design has evolved just in the last 30 or 40 years. Back in Thorgerson's day, to make changes or edits on a photo, you had to do it yourself. There was no photoshop computer program to clone or brush on 700 beds, they had to actually go out and do it. After taking just a few graphics classes in high school, it's easy to see how much more raw passion and work it took to do things like this. The passion and skill it took to edit raw photos at this level is inconceivable due to today's tools. To do the things people do on a computer now in a darkroom using such raw techniques for editing really is amazing. Great post!
ReplyDeleteHoly hell! 700 beds?! That's crazy! And an excellent blog post I might add. Honestly this makes every modern graphic designer look weak. Not that it isn't a competitive field or anything, but the introduction of computer editing has certainly made jobs like these tons easier. That being said, I still wouldn't be able to make 90% stuff people make today on their laptops. It definitely takes tons of talent to break into this field no matter what technology is available. I've seen some of the pictures you draw in class and you are an outstanding artist, best of luck in your career dude!
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