Perhaps unsurprisingly, this book is an absolute feast for the eyes, rivaled by only a handful of tomes in my collection. (I’ve in fact bought another copy to give to my aunt, a graphic / calligraphy artist; she saw Pink Floyd live on their The Wall tour.) I had vaguely known about the cover art of Hipgnosis thanks to Pink Floyd, particularly their iconic Wish You Were Here cover, but when I learned they had also done the cover of the album Chrome by Catherine Wheel, one of my all-time favorite discs, I really began to dig in and study their other designs. That 1993 album’s cover is used as the cover of this book. (A cool factoid is that the covers of the CD, LP, & cassette versions of this album all feature slightly different poses, and the water was very cold.) I’m using “they” to refer to the Hipgnosis design team, though it was of course the brainchild of Mr. Thorgerson. Some of their images were a bit over the top, particularly for the Cranberries & Ween, but at least they tried to give us something unforgettable each time, and succeeded at that. If only they had branched out into all forms of advertising, this world would be a lot cooler… ( )

The book tries to both show the art and discuss the inspiration and development of the artwork; unfortunately, the words get in the way of the pictures and vice-versa and short-changes both. ( )