THE HIPGNOSIS STORY began in 1968 when two film students, Aubrey 'Po' Powell and Storm Thorgerson, saw the unusual name written on their apartment door in London's South Kensington. They were looking for a title for their newly formed company specialising in photo-design work and the connotations of the word Hipgnosis seemed totally appropriate. Syd Barrett, founder and lyricist of Pink Floyd, was living with them at the time and it was he who supposedly made up the name. Pink Floyd were friends and when they needed a design for their second album 'A Saucerful of Secrets', they turned to Po and Storm for ideas. After the album cover was completed, Hipgnosis suddenly found themselves inundated with requests from other recording artists to design covers for them too.

At the time, most covers tended to have a photograph of the singer on the front, which Hipgnosis found uninteresting. Given a canvas measuring 310mm x 310mm, they realised that there were opportunities to exploit the medium with ideas that were more creative; it was simply a matter of persuading the bands and the record companies that a more striking image could help sell the music better.

Hipgnosis' approach to album design was strongly photography-oriented, and they pioneered the use of many innovative visual and packaging techniques. Thorgerson & Powell's surreal, elaborately manipulated photos – which utilised darkroom tricks, multiple exposures, airbrush retouching, and mechanical cut-and-paste techniques - were a film-based forerunner for what would later be called photoshopping.

For the next fifteen years, between 1968 and 1983, Hipgnosis worked for numerous artists including Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney, T-Rex, Yes, Peter Gabriel, Genesis, The Rolling Stones, Black Sabbath, Peter Frampton, Bad Company, Al Stewart, Alan Parsons, 10cc, and Deep Purple, to name but a few, creating photo-designs that were both different and original. It thus became probably the best known design company in the music business.

Po built a house in Formentera in 1983 and now spends much of the year there writing, still working for rock'n'roll's luminaries, and directing numerous music videos, live concert films and documentaries. Storm is still creating album covers, now sadly reduced in size for the CD and DVD market, but nevertheless still as innovative as ever. His recent work includes Muse, The Cranberries, Pink Floyd and Audioslave.