Mixed Media: Studying Dark Side Of The Moon

I attended my mixed media class in college in which we explored illustrator, me and my classmates were shown the basics behind shapes, fills and paintbrushes. While in class we were given a small exercise, we designed Pink Floyds "Dark Side Of The moon" album which was very informative and fun.

Below is my class Illustration of Dark Side Of The Moon.

My design of  Hipgnosis prism

So our tutor has given us the task of finding out about the artists behind Dark Side Of  The Moon and gave us "Hipgnosis" to work from. I found out Hipgnosis were an art design group based in London who specialized in designing album art for clientele such  as  Pink Floyd, Led Zepplin and AC/DC.


Hipgnosis consisted mainly of Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell and later Peter Christopherson. They designed some of the most surreal album art of 60's, 70's and 80's', their trademark was using visual puns and double meanings in relation to the name of the artists album.

From what i found out Pink Floyd approached Thorgesen and Powell to design their second album cover "Saucerful Of Secrets". At the time they were students at the royal art of college and worked from the dark room to produce their works later on they rented space and built a studio.

In 1973 Hipgnosis received major recognition for Dark Side of the Moons album art. The final design was one of several versions, but the prism/pyramid design was set in stone as final choice.

I found that Hipgnosis work was very photography orientated pioneering many innovative techniques. Thorgesen and Powell  manipulated photos with utilizing darkroom tricks, multiple exposures, airbrush retouching, and mechanical cut-and-paste techniques which have today been utilized to programs such as Photoshop. They used Hasselbald medium format cameras as the square film format fit well with album cover imagery.

It is eye opening to learn that these guys paved the way for some of the techniques that we as creators use today,our tutor has given us a study of great validity. I think Dark Side Of The Moons art speaks familiarity in the visuals of the prism but the title is mysterious which you try and link to the visuals, the black back drop amplifies the visuals but also the mystery in the title. My interpretation of the visuals are the light prism represents the band, the pyramid their musical house of foundation and the rainbow prism the product of their creative expression.

To finish this of i have learned from this study and will do best to instill the discipline of looking at the original source for inspiration and knowledge.