The release of Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967 marked not only a new era for album recordings, it also opened the door for a new era in album jacket art. No longer would it be sufficient to have a simple picture of the performer with album title on the cover. In the years that followed a number of visual artists would make entire careers out of designing and creating elaborate album packaging. Vinyl was still king and artists had 12" x 12" surfaces for reproduction of their designs. Along with gatefold jackets and inner sleeves to augment their concepts, some album packages were more interesting than the music inside. The arrival of the much smaller CD format in the '80's signaled an end to the golden age of album art.
One of the most successful purveyors of this art form was the British photography and design studio Hipgnosis. Their concepts typically required a great deal of pre-planning to set up multiple photographs that were cut, pasted up and then re-copied for final production. Art that might be knocked out today in hours using digital technology would require days to produce using the traditional photo methods of the '70's. If you are interested in the subject of album art photography I highly recommend the site www.hipgnosiscovers.com/. Storm Thorgerson a founding member of Hipgnosis maintains the site that features numerous examples of their work. You may find inspiration for your own photo art projects there.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment