2 cover stories in our archive
Behind the Covers' archive includes 2 album covers documented under the "Hipgnosis" design theme, all from the 1970s. These covers sit within the punk, metal, rock tradition and feature work by XTC, Black Sabbath. Each entry below includes the cover artwork, the designers and photographers behind it, and a short story about the visual choices that defined the release.
XTC rejected the covers Hipgnosis had prepared for Go 2. Then Andy Partridge spotted an unused Storm Thorgerson idea in the studio: a block of type explaining exactly how an album cover is supposed to persuade you to buy the record. He immediately wanted it.
Black Sabbath's Technical Ecstasy turns an escalator encounter into one of Hipgnosis's strangest mechanical romances. Storm Thorgerson developed the concept, George Hardie designed the male and female robots and handled the graphics, and Richard Manning executed the robot illustration and photographic retouching that made the impossible scene look almost plausible.