The light band emanating from the prism on the album cover has six colours, missing indigo compared to the traditional division of the spectrum into red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Added shortly afterwards, the gatefold design also includes a visual representation of the heartbeat sound used throughout the album, and the back of the album cover contains Thorgerson’s suggestion of another prism recombining the spectrum of light, facilitating interesting layouts of the sleeve in record shops.

The design represents three elements the band’s stage lighting, the album lyrics, and Richard Wright’s request for a “simple and bold” design.The spectrum of light continues through to the gatefold-an idea that Waters came up with. Hipgnosis offered the band a choice of seven designs, but all four members agreed that the prism was by far the best. The artwork was created by their associate, George Hardie. The prism design was inspired by a photograph that Thorgerson had seen during a brainstorming session with Powell.

For The Dark Side of the Moon Richard Wright instructed them to come up with something “smarter, neater-more classy”. Designers Storm Thorgeson and Aubrey Powell were able to ignore such criticism as they were employed by the band. Hipgnosis had designed several of the band’s previous albums, with controversial results EMI had reacted with confusion when faced with the cover designs for Atomic Heart Mother and Obscured by Clouds, as they had expected to see traditional designs which included lettering and words. The album was originally released in a gatefold LP sleeve designed by Hipnosis and George Hardie, and bore Hardie’s iconic dispersive prism on the cover.

#pink floyd #covers PINK FLOYD - THE DARK SIDE OF THE MOON

Atomic heart mother cover