Hasta La Ideas

News: Storm Thorgerson, the British graphic designer who created the iconic album sleeve for Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side of the Moon, has died aged 69.

Thorgerson studied at the Royal College of Art in London and founded his studio Hipgnosis in 1967 with fellow designer Aubrey Powell. Together they created dozens of album sleeves for bands including T. Rex, Led Zeppelin, Yes and Peter Gabriel.

Above: Animals by Pink Floyd
Top: The Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd 

They were also responsible for a string of covers for Pink Floyd, including Dark Side of the Moon, Atom Heart Mother and Animals, which featured an inflatable pink pig tethered to one of the chimneys of Battersea Power Station in London.

Famously, the photo shoot descended into chaos when the pig broke free of its moorings and rose into the flight path of Heathrow Airport, before eventually coming to ground in Kent.

Above: Electric Warrior by T. Rex

In the 1980s Thorgerson began directing music videos and eventually commercials and television documentaries. More recently he produced artwork for rock bands including Muse and Biffy Clyro.

Above: Houses of the Holy by Led Zeppelin

Earlier this year we featured Peter Saville’s hazard sign-referencing sleeve for Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark and graphic design studio Barnbrook’s defaced artwork for the latest David Bowie album – see more music-related design on Dezeen or see all graphic design.

The post Storm Thorgerson
1944-2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

News: British industrial designer James Irvine, who founded his studio in Milan nearly 30 years ago, has died aged 54.

Irvine studied design at Kingston Polytechnic in London before completing his master’s degree at the Royal College of Art in 1984, after which he moved to Milan to work as a design consultant for Olivetti, the Italian company famous for its typewriters.

Founded in 1988, his studio has created products, furniture and transport for companies including Italian design brands Artemide, Foscarini and Cappellini, art publisher Phaidon and camera-maker Canon, while in 2000 he designed a fleet of Mercedes-Benz buses for the German city of Hannover.

Irvine most recently worked as the creative director of bent wood furniture company Thonet and as design consultant to Japanese brand Muji, roles he combined in a furniture design collaboration with Konstantin Grcic in 2009.

Figures from the industry paid tribute to Irvine on Twitter, with British designer Sebastian Bergne commenting: “Deeply shocked to hear of the death of James Irvine. What a great loss.” David Carlson, editor-in-chief of online magazine David Report, wrote: “The world has lost a great person and a great designer.”

We filmed an interview with Irvine in 2010 as part of the Dezeen Talks at [D3] Design Talents series at imm cologne – watch it below.

See all design by James Irvine »

The post James Irvine
1958-2013 appeared first on Dezeen.

News: Alex Moulton, the British engineer and designer best known for inventing the small-wheeled Moulton bicycle and the rubber suspension system for the Mini car, has died aged 92.

After an apprenticeship at the Bristol Aeroplane Co during the second world war, Alex Moulton became a consultant for British Motor Corporation.

The rubber suspension system he developed in the 1950s was eventually used in the iconic Mini, which launched in 1959. Moulton’s system allowed for the car’s small size without compromising on handling and comfort.

Above: photograph by Bradford on Avon Museum

In 1964 he launched the Alex Moulton Bicycle (pictured top), which had a small, lightweight frame without a top bar, 16-inch wheels and a rubber suspension system. In 1967, Moulton was forced to sell to rival cycle maker Raleigh, which made Moulton designs until 1974.

After commercial production ended, Moulton continued to produce a small number of the bicycles, which became collectors’ items. He was appointed CBE for services to industry in 1976.

The Moulton Bicycle Company is now run by his great-nephew Shaun.

We’ve featured lots of bicycles on Dezeen, such as a bicycle with a frame of steam-bent wood and another with a cardboard frame and wheels.

See all our stories about bicycle design »
See all our stories about transport design »

The post Alex Moulton
1920-2012 appeared first on Dezeen.

News: experimental architect and artist Lebbeus Woods has died at the age of 72.

Woods was long admired by students and academics for his fantastical drawings imagining deconstructed buildings and dystopian landscapes that relate as closely to science fiction as to architecture, including one series that shows a “defensive wall” designed to protect Bosnia from invaders by absorbing them like a sponge (pictured).

Woods trained as an architect at the University of Illinois and worked under Eero Saarinen, before leaving practice to focus on theory and experimentation. He also co-founded the Research Institute for Experimental Architecture, where he developed a number of conceptual projects aimed at finding architectural answers to contemporary world problems.

The post Lebbeus Woods
1940-2012 appeared first on Dezeen.

Dezeen Wire: Ferdinand Alexander Porsche, grandson of the car firm’s founder and designer of the iconic Porsche 911 model, has died at the age of 76 – The Guardian