Squaring the Circle

In 1964 two young men meet for the first time during a drugs bust at a house in Cambridge and after everyone else runs for the hills to avoid the police they are the only two people left to face the music. As a result of fate bringing them together, Aubrey (‘Po’) Powell and Storm Thorgerson become life-long friends and creative partners. Syd Barrett was one of those who escaped the police that day and it was he who went on to form Pink Floyd – a piece of serendipity that was to have a profound affect on all of them for the rest of their lives. Syd, Po and Storm went on to share a flat in London during the hippie Summer of Love in 1967, and by ’68 Po and Storm had formed the fledgling art house Hipgnosis (named incidentally by Barrett) – a photo-design company for album sleeves. By chance one of the first covers they create is Pink Floyd’s ‘A Saucerful of Secrets’ and the rest – as they say – is history. Hipgnosis went on to design every Pink Floyd album sleeve (except The Wall and Final Cut) including arguably the most iconic album cover of all time ‘Dark Side of The Moon’. Other rock n’ roll bands who graced their studio during the next 15 years – the halcyon days of Vinyl – included Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, AC/DC, Paul McCartney, T.Rex, ELO, 10cc, Black Sabbath, Peter Frampton, The Rolling Stones, The Who, and many more, becoming London’s most fashionable album design studio ever.