No. 2: THE HYPNOTIC ALBUM ART ICONOGRAPHY OF HIPGNOSIS
It’s funny — maybe sad? — that in our time, it feels like such little importance is given to album art.
It’s there, sure, but it’s less central.
Wolfgang Tillmans for Frank Ocean is one of the few in recent memory that has become iconic. But in the streaming first world, ironically, it’s the music that matters.
Hipgnosis was a duo of true merry pranksters, with little formal training in the graphic arts, who produced some of the most provocative and show-stopping covers of the 60s and 70s.
Dark Side of the Moon, come on!
They paid incredible attention to detail and analog practices. Literally creating the image in real life, and in-camera for the most part.
Which is just incredible to conceive in the days before digital layers and vectors
“Squaring the Circle” is on Netflix now and tells the full, heady story.