Storm Thorgeson is a British designer and artist known for his iconic album cover designs for bands such as Pink Floyd and Biffy Clyro. His design process typically involves meeting with the band to discuss ideas, creating rough illustrations, developing prototypes, photographing shoots that can involve models and complex lighting/filtering, lengthy editing of photos, and finalizing the selected artwork. Though the steps seem simple written down, Thorgeson's album covers like Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon and Biffy Clyro's Many of Horror would have required extensive time and effort to achieve the perfect look through elaborate photo shoots and editing.

1. Storm Thorgeson

2. Thorgeson has designed many an album cover, he is a British designer and artist. His
albums are iconic and have been designed for bands like Pink Floyd and Biffy Clyro.
In East London at the London Idea Generation Gallery, an exhibition of Thorgeson artwork
was displayed. Within this exhibition it became clear his thought process.
1. The Brief – Designer listens to the music, reads the lyrics and talks to the band. This
creates a number of ideas which can be used to form the brief.
2. Roughs – The designer meets the band, where they discuss ideas and try to narrow them
down, everyone is honest and eventually more complete illustrations are made (These are
know as the roughs).
3. Tests – Now a prototype is created, as the rough and budget should be set. The prototype
depends on the design, because it may include models being made from clay and
polystyrene, if all goes to plan.
4. Shoot – Depending on how complex the shoot is, often volunteers will be called upon. The
shoot can often go on for a long time depending on the weather. Many photographs are
taken, with different filters and lighting.
5. Editing – A shot is now selected, however this may take a very long time considering
many of the shots only differ slightly.
6. artwork – Now the shot it chosen, any editing or cleaning up is done. Then it is handed
over.

3. When taking into account the processes in which Thorgeson goes through – written
down they seem very simple. But when you consider some of his artwork and how long
it would of taken to achieve it, its anything but simple.
Using the process, the album art below would of taken
much more time actually in the shoot. As many
different photographs would have been taken. In each
photograph the lighting would of be slightly different
with a filter. Not only would there of been a pile of
photographs, but before even that they would have had
to paint each persons head so delicately to get the
perfect look for this album. Even though you can see
only 3 main heads there will be a lot more. Costumes
would be a big part of this album too and the clothes
would have to compliment and match the head design. I
think that this design is so simple yet effective. The
triangular shape the bodies make works well as it
throws in lots of different shapes.
For example above is the album cover artwork for
Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror. For this particular
piece of artwork, not only have you got to find the
right location and get the right shot but the amount
of editing which would have to be done also. The
concept of this cover (I think) is great. I love the
fact that it is real life until you get to the car where
it looks almost cartoon, making it stand out. Also the
ghosts foreseeing the car crash relates to the title
of the album, as it is horror. Using the bold colour in
the foreground creates an amazing contrast, even
more so with using the vibrant red and blue.
Above is one of the most famous album covers (vinyl)
Storm Thorgeson has ever designed. Obviously it is for
Pink Floyd’s The dark side of the moon. This works
really well. Whereas in the others there would have
been a big shoot. This is very unlikely as it would have
been produced with a model and a lot of editing. One of
the most simplistic album covers but probably the
most memorable. The bold rainbow against the deep
black make an impact on the mind. Again it relates to
the albums name (in my eyes). The moon is the triangle
and the dark side is where the rainbow is and it is
showing there is beauty on the dark side of the moon
much like there music.