Storm Thorgerson is a renowned British artist known for designing album covers for famous musicians like Pink Floyd. He takes a thorough creative process, starting with discussing the music and lyrics with the band to develop concepts. He then sketches rough illustrations of ideas and prototypes are made to test how the visuals fit with the music. Location shoots are carefully planned and photos are taken under different conditions. Extensive editing selects the best shots, which are then finalized as the artwork. Thorgerson's process aims to perfectly match compelling visuals with the music.

1. Storm Thorgerson
BY POPPY WING

2. Storm Thorgerson
Storm Thorgerson is a British designer and artist for many classic album covers, he has designed
larger amounts of album covers over his life time from artists such as Pink Floyd to Audioslave.
The Cranberries to muse. Over the last 40 years he has produced the most captivating album
artworks that have been most memorable.
Throughout this power point I will talk about Storms creative process in a specific case study.

3. The brief
When designing, he listens to the music, reads the lyrics and talks to the band to get an idea of
what the album should look like. By doing this it creates a ‘brain soup’ from which ideas can go
into the design of the album brief.

4. Roughs
Over a number of days which consist of meetings, the designer and the band have further
discussions to attempt to get a certain theme or big idea for the album brief. This is a very
creative stage as so many thoughts and ideas are put into place, just to get every idea out
possible. Once finished the best ideas are converted to more in detailed illustrations which are
known as the “roughs”

5. Tests
When the rough copy is done and they have agreed on a budget a prototype is then made to
make sure that the idea works with the song before creating the real thing as it might not be
always correct first time. If the prototype is correct and they have made the models from either
clay or polystyrene then they can go onto making the final models. Making sure that it ticks all the
right boxes.

6. Shoot
Booking a location is only done after a lot of research has been done behind it, they need to
make sure that it is suitable and correct for the right set of scene. If the location is outdoors
the weather could be an issue. Everything is positioned with help from volunteers if the
shoot is big and complex. Photo shots are taken and in various weather conditions and in
different lightings to get the best possible outcome.

7. Editing
Editing is where out of all the shots they pick the best that they reckon will best fit in with the
album, only the best shots are chosen. It can take a long period of time as they want to make
sure that they have chosen the best shots they have and want it to be as perfect as they can
because many shots will be so similar but yet so different so they need to be checked carefully.
Here you can pick from so
many different shots they
need to be the right ones for
the album.

8. Artwork
When you have finally chosen the right shot that is perfect and after cleaning up all of the
editing from the computer from previous tasks so that you make sure you have the correct final
produce before handing it over as the finished real thing.