Founded by Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey “Po” Powell in 1968, British design company Hipgnosis created album covers for some of the major acts of the rock era. Many are so iconic as to be instantly recognisable, even if you didn’t know they were the products of the fertile, experimental minds at Hipgnosis. A couple of examples: Led Zeppelin’s naked children climbing the Giant’s Causeway in Northern Ireland (Houses Of The Holy), Peter Gabriel “Melt” face (1977), plus a host of Pink Floyd classics (Dark Side Of The Moon‘s prism, the Atom Heart Mother cow, and numerous others).
Here are some examples from the Hipgnosis folio, chosen to highlight lesser known covers. An earlier album cover feature, 10 Ripping Roger Dean Album Covers, is one of the most viewed posts at Vinyl Connection, so I hope you enjoy this selection too.
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The Gods — Genesis [1968]
Pink Floyd — A Saucerful Of Secrets [1968]
Gun — Gun Sight [1969]
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Right from the beginning, Hipgnosis were determined to find new takes on album cover design and were not averse to including a measure of “shock” value. In a quote from Mark Blake’s new book, Us And Them: The Authorised Story of Hipgnosis, Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell sums up this attitude: “Storm saw it as his job to turn an audio event into a visual event”.*
Here is a trio of early Hipgnosis covers that are both striking and confronting.
The Edgar Broughton Band — The Edgar Broughton Band [1971]
Toe Fat — Toe Fat [1970]
Not for the first time, Storm and Po’s image was considered unsuitable for the US market. The American record company airbrushed out the offending couple, replacing them with a lamb.*
Toe Fat — Toe Fat [1970, US cover]
Climax Chicago — Tightly Knit [1971]
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Po on Storm again:
He thrived on ambiguity and contradiction, on strange juxtapositions and visual puns, and making the real unreal. *
One theme weaving in and out of the enormous Hipgnosis catalogue is that of absence.
Here are four fantastic covers featuring negative space.
Masters Apprentices — Choice Cuts [1971]
Brand X — Livestock [1977]
Caravan — Cunning Stunts [1975]
Bad Company — Desolation Angels [1979]
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* Aubrey ‘Po’ Powell quotes and specific historical details are from Mark Blake’s 2023 book (see below).
Us And Them is an informative and thoroughly entertaining volume, recommended for anyone with a passing interest in album cover design or, for that matter, the birth of “Swinging London”. Suffice to say, Pink Floyd nip in and out of the story on a regular basis and Led Zeppelin make their presence felt.
Mark Blake (2023) Us And Them: The Authorised Story of Hipgnosis. Nine Eight Books, London, UK.
Mark was kind enough to agree to an interview about his new Hipgnosis book. The article can be found here:
UNDER HIPGNOSIS — THE MARK BLAKE INTERVIEW
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vinylconnection.com.au 
Cool to hear about the interview, that’s especially exciting! Houses of the Holy is so iconic, that cover. Too bad you’re not such a fan of the contents, ha…kind of does a Maxfield Parrish in a bit dunnit? Beautiful piece here Bruce, distressing toes…
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The interview was fun, Bill. Mark was very helpful and prompt, and his writing was, as one might hope, super.
I think Hipgnosis were very very interesting, partially because of their willingness to shock and confound. Could be I’m in a minority. We’ll see.
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Although Hipgnosis did some great work with P. Floyd and others (their cover for UFO’s “Phenomenon” is one of my all-time faves) most of these are just plain awful and present more “schlock value” than “shock value.” Sorry, but the “Toe Fat” one nearly put me off my lunch! Cheers, Rick
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Yeah, I’m not sure how many sales of Toe Fat were inspired by the cover, Rick. It certainly is bizarre.
If you read the interview with Mark Blake in a few days, you’ll also see that in loving ‘Phenomenon’ you are in good company!
There will also be more covers, hopefully not too many that put you off your tucker!
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My God, that Toe Fat cover is *bizarre and unsettling* and the lamb doesn’t make it any less so. My favorite of the bunch: Cunning Stunts…fantastic! One wonders how time-consuming that was to create in pre-Photoshop days!
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A lamb! Why a lamb, for goodness sake? 🤪
The Caravan is very clever, isn’t it? After failing to get a good photo of my CD copy, I went searching on-line and learned, to my horror, that sometimes Reverend Spooner infiltrates the search algorithm. After that, the Toe Fat cover was a profound relief.
Hope you enjoy this series, JDB.
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My favourite (apocryphal) Spoonerism is the after dinner toast to the Queen. He should have said, “Raise your glasses to the dear old Queen”, but what came out was “Glaze your arses to the queer old dean”.
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Gods and Toe Fat, hooray!! I love those wonderful obscurities. See here . . . https://jericsmith.com/2021/12/23/favorite-songs-by-favorite-artists-series-two-57-the-gods-and-related-bands/
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Hooray for the Uriah Heep connection!
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Very interesting reactions, these are all new to me and I’m surprised everybody’s fingering the Toe Fat cover, I think it’s eye catching and not particularly creepy. He could’ve done something on that theme for Little Feat. Reminds me of being in primary school and watching a miniature play with finger puppets. Certainly some fun stuff from the pre-Photoshop era.
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There is a decidedly creepy Dr Who episode where people’s faces are ‘stolen’, leaving an oval not dissimilar to Storm Thorgerson’s thumb (the model for the Toe Fat cover). To me it is more surreal, Dali-esque even, than especially creepy.
I think the Master’s Apprentices cover is one of my Hipgnosis faves.
As for Neo Park, he of the Little Feat covers, what a visionary artist. They are still amazing. Not that I want to take us away from Hipgnosis, but got a Feat fave, Robert?
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“Feats Don’t Fail Me Now,” like an old B movie poster. My dad was going to their concerts in those days
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My favorite one was the one with the deep sea diver coming out of the water, or astronaut or whatever the hell he’s supposed to be. And also their other album The Original Soundtrack with that old-timey movie viewing thing.
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Oh, i forgot to say I was talking about the band 10cc. Or else you wouldn’t know who the hell I was talking about.
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Yeah, got that King C! Used to stock that 10CC album in the shop I worked in as a young ‘un.
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Now I remember what that was a picture of on the 10cc album. It was an old film editing device when you used to have to do it by hand. I suppose by now they do it by computer.
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Reckon so. Although I believe a modern version of the deep sea diver kit is still available at specialised (see: Navy) outlets. 🙂
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Ha ha. Too bad the Army/Navy surplus store where I live just closed recently cuz maybe they would have had the deep sea diver outfit. That was my favorite store in the whole world. You wouldn’t believe all the great clothes i bought there over the years. Many army jackets, army boots, camouflage pants, camouflage jackets, camouflage everything as a matter of fact including socks and underwear. And it was much cheaper buying it there than at the fashion stores.
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Cool idea for a post!
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Thanks Christian. A series of posts, in fact!
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I always liked that they got away with hiding Dr. Strange on that Floyd cover. So much going on there that it slipped through the copyright police. That Bad Company cover is pretty ghastly though and has to be a low point for Hipgnosis.
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I rather like the “Saucerful” collage, all done by hand. When EMI insisted on a band photo, they ‘made it as small as we could get away with’, according to ‘Po’ in Mark Blake’s Hipgnosis book.
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Great post. Thankyou.
Always interesting to see what covers people like and don’t, and some I had forgotten about.
Lots of connections with some of the models on these sleeves. The naked guy on the cover of ‘Toe Fat’ (before he was replaced by a lamb!) is also hanging upside down naked on ‘Edgar Broughton Band’ and later appeared as dressed as a diver on the back of 10cc’s ‘Deceptive Bends’ and wearing a suit on the cover of AC/DC’s ‘Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap’.
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Thanks for dropping by, Mark. Isn’t it fascinating that some of the Hipgnosis work continues to elicit strong responses over half a century later!
(Our interview will go up late-ish Sunday evening, UK time.)
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Some really great covers (like the Gun one myself) but a few very disturbing ones. The hanging meat with a person thrown in and the Toe one…ughh! LOL!
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Check out author Mark Blake’s comment above, John. Those two you highlighted are the same person!
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[…] Part 1: 10 HYPGNOTIC ALBUM COVERS […]
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I’ve read about the huge bands using them but I had no clue they did as many as they did…I’ve seen some numbers as high as over 200 album covers.
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I think it may have been over 300, Max!
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Wow
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All over my pile. Good one Bruce.
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[…] Part 1: 10 HYPGNOTIC ALBUM COVERS […]
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[…] with us, along with comments and quotes from the studio’s co-lead Aubrey Powell – https://vinylconnection.com.au/2023/03/10/10-hypnotic-hipgnosis-album-covers/ and […]
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[…] it being a record obsessive’s nightmare, I do love this cover (which is not by Hipgnosis). The image of music being squeezed from PVC (an oil product) is delicious, if environmentally […]
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