The Work of Hipgnosis : Walk Away Rene

Published by Paper Tiger, 1978, softcover, large format, illustrated, index, 159 pages, condition: very good.

Published in 1978, The Works of Hipgnosis: Walk Away René, documents a blazing visual fire that Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson, later joined by Peter Christopherson (of Throbbing Gristle infamy), ignited atop the world of rock and roll. In the space of a decade, Powell and Thorgerson, known as the design team Hipgnosis, didnt just change the visual language of rock music, they took that language to the world.

Could they have imagined in 1973, when designing their iconic prism cover for Pink Floyds Dark Side of the Moon that fifty years later it would be the most present visual down at the local shopping mall?

The first clue to their collective sensibility is in the three-way wordplay of their name: hypnosis, hip and gnosticism. If you were to interpret that as meaning a bunch of hip gods who were going to hypnotise you with their groovy visuals, well then, youre not far off.