Members of Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, along with Paul McCartney, Peter Gabriel, and other artists are featured in the forthcoming documentary Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis), out June 20.
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Directed by photographer Anton Corbijn, Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) tells the story of the British album design team Hipgnosis’ Storm Thorgerson and Aubrey Powell, told through stories from those the duo impacted the most.
Founded in 1967, Hipgnosis was responsible for some of the most iconic album covers of all time, including Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon and Wish You Were Here and Led Zeppelin’s Houses of the Holy, along with countless other covers for Paul McCartney and Wings, T. Rex, AC/DC, Genesis, Peter Gabriel, The Police, Peter Frampton, and Def Leppard, among many others.
“Their methods were unconventional, their budgets often unreasonable,” reads an official descriptor of the film, “but they were fearless visionaries who artfully manipulated photographic images long before computer graphics became ubiquitous.”
Directed by Corbijn, known for directing numerous music videos and directing the documentaries U2: The Joshua Tree Tour and Depeche Mode’s Spirits in the Forest, along with the films Control, The American, and A Most Wanted Man, the Hipgnosis film also features interviews with Peter Gabriel, Noel Gallagher, and 10CC, among others.
“If Pink Floyd didn’t take them, three weeks later they’d appear on someone else’s records,” said Pink Floyd’s drummer Nick Mason of the team’s album designs in the trailer, while bandmate David Gilmour said they were “always off the wall, always doing the unexpected.”
Robert Plant said “they came as a double act,” of the design duo, while Jimmy Page added “They were like chalk and cheese.”
In 1994, Powell returned to designing album covers to work on Pink Floyd’s 20th anniversary The Division Bell box set.
Prior to his death in 2013, Thorgerson was also directing the Syd Barrett documentary, Have You Got It Yet? which is set to debut in U.K. theaters on May 15, followed by the U.S. and Canada in late June.
Photo by Rob Verhorst/Redferns
