Storm ThorgersonBy George Merry

Introduction

Storm Thorgerson was a British graphic designer who was well-known for his

designs of memorable album covers, especially for rock bands and artists

including; Muse, Biffy Clyro and Led Zeppelin which represents his credibility

over a number of years.

He also had an exhibition of his artwork for albums and singles shown in the

East London idea generation gallery in 2010 that underlined the ingenious

methods, this included a 6 step process of a brief, roughs, tests, shoot,

editing and artwork.

6 Stage Process – Brief

This is obviously an early stage of the process and mainly involves simply

listening to the music/song, reading into the lyrics and discussing the ideas

with the band to represent their style or image successfully, so basically put

this stage is a brain storm of ideas.

6 Stage Process – The Roughs’

This is essentially a “Rough” copy/idea in a more creative and innovative

meeting with the client, including discussions and scribbling's in attempt to

become decisive in the artwork design that satisfies both parties, in which the

favourite basic designs/themes developed and progressed into more

comprehensive graphics.

6 Stage Process – Tests

This is when one of the “roughs” have been decided upon as well as the

budget, the designer, Storm Thorgerson can create a One-off prototype to

ensure that the idea and theme works well for the band and their target

audience, this stage could potentially include the production of scaled models

and if it all works then the final models are assembled.

6 Stage Process – Shoot

This part is the photo shoot once a location has been examined and agreed

upon, in some cases models are made and positioned along with voluntary

help depending on the complexity of the shoot, once everything is ready a

variety of photos can be taken from different angles and different lighting

due to weather conditions and filters etc.

6 Stage Process – Editing

This stage is used to select the highest quality photo from the shoot for the

album cover, the amount of time that this takes will vary due to the varied

amount of photos that are required to be compared with each other.

6 Stage Process – Artwork

This is the final stage once the right shot has been chosen for the design and

is being touched up through the final editing to ensure the highest quality of

design for the band, once this is done the final product is produced.

Examples of Storm Thorgerson’s work