Viva Brighton Issue #52 June 2017

DESIGN
....................................
George Hardie
Pink Floyd album cover artist
I speak to Brighton University Professor George
Hardie on a Bank Holiday, distracting from
his preparations for a teaching trip to Porto,
a nerve-wracking home visit from a panel of
expert gardeners, and work on his forthcoming
monograph.
The book, to be published by Unit Editions
this year, is described by designer and editor
Adrian Shaughnessy as ‘a comprehensive study
of George Hardie’s vast body of work’. It follows
on from Hardie’s 50th-anniversary retrospective
at Brighton University this spring, and ‘will
chart the connections, influences and allusions
that are embedded in Hardie’s work’.
This is no small undertaking, as George hit the
big time as a graphic artist while studying at the
Royal College of Art in the 1970s. He illustrated
the cover of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon,
as well as other iconic albums by the likes of
Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, with design
group Hipgnosis.
You might imagine that creating work to such
high-profile briefs would be hard to beat even
years later, but no. “They’re not incredibly interesting
to me,” says George, “except of course,
that’s terribly unfair because I was incredibly
grateful, and lucky, to be working for such
important clients so early.
....58....