In the late 1970’s, the punk rock group ‘The Sex Pistols’ moved into a garage to the rear of the offices of Hipgnosis at 6 Denmark St, Soho, London. At this time the music scene was changing, Punk music was making waves and when Johnny Rotten passed by the Hipgnosis office wearing a “I Hate Pink Floyd” T-shirt, Storm Thorgerson, Aubrey Powell (aka Po) and Peter Chrisopherson knew their time designing album covers was coming to an end. And so in 1982 from designing their first cover ‘Obscured By Clouds by Pink Floyd in 1968 to designing their last cover for Led Zeppelin’s ‘Coda’ they shut down the design company Hipgnosis. The Hipgnosis brand was lost forever.
According to Storm in ‘Walk Away Rene’ the origin on the name came about when someone( dope freak) had scrawled the word ‘ Hipgnosis’ on the door or their flat in South Kensington, London. Not to be confused with the word Hypnosis, Po and Storm thought it was a great name for their fledgling company. The misspelling gave the word ‘Hip’ meaning cool, groovy, and the Gnosis or Gnostic which relates to ancient learning, the old and the new cohabitating. Their original Hipgnosis Logo and Business card showed a cat and a mouse cohabiting? not normal?
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