Storm Thorgerson

Storm Thorgerson is the artist behind images synonymous with identifying the pop culture of the 70s throughout and into the 80s, 90s and the Millennium. Creating visually beautiful and interesting art, Storm’s work has featured on a variety of singles, album and CD covers, as well as posters. He is the author of several books including “Mind over Matter”, “Walk Away Renee”, “Album Cover Album” series, “Eye of the Storm” and ” 100 Best Album Covers”.

Life began for Storm Thorgerson in 1944 in Potters Bar, Middlesex. He went to school at Summerhill free school and then Brunswick primary Cambridge. His secondary education was at local grammar Cambridge high School for boys. Storm earned a BA Honours in English and Philosophy from Leicester University (63 – 66) and finally an MA in film and TV from the Royal College of Art, London (66 – 69).

In 1968, Storm and Aubrey Powell (Po) formed “Hipgnosis”, a graphic design studio specialising in creative photography. This creative company predominately worked within the music business designing the album covers for rock ‘n’ roll bands such as Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Genesis, Black Sabbath, 10cc, Paul McCartney, and Peter Gabriel amongst many others.

Applying his creativity to moving images, Storm formed Green Back Films with Po and Peter Christopherson in 1983. Despite producing numerous music videos for the likes of Paul Young, Nik Kershaw, Robert Plant, Big Country and others, the company was not to last and imploded in 1985.

In 1985, undeterred, Storm went solo and continued directing music videos. His direction for the Pink Floyd video “Learning to Fly” won the best director award at the American Billboard Awards. The following year, Storm directed for Pink Floyd six short films to be screened through the duration of their world tour.

Storm Thorgerson continued creating and producing album covers for Pink Floyd, Anthrax, Alan Parsons, Ian Drury, Cranberries, Ween, Catherine Wheel, Phish, The Mars Volta and many, many more.