Hasta La Ideas

Dezeen Screen: in this interview filmed at Dezeen Space, London designers JAILmake Studio talk about their Brick Replacement Service, which turned seeds and soil into bricks during a day at our micro-exhibition Dezeen Platform. Watch the movie »

Our interview with the album cover designer behind some of the most memorable images in music

Storm Thorgerson is undoubtedly the man who made album covers a veritable artistic force. Working with bands like Pink Floyd (who gave him his start), Biffy Clyro, The Mars Volta, Muse and so many more, Thorgerson himself is as legendary as the musicians whose work he visually interprets—and for good reason. A master of his craft, he continues to leave both bands’ and fans’ mouths aghast with his visually arresting pictorials, which creatively toe the line between fantasy and reality.

Upon the recent release of A Foot In The Door—a best-of Pink Floyd album featuring remastered recordings of the original songs—we sat down with the iconic British artist to learn more about his own greatest hits, and how he views his own body of work to date.

Can you elaborate on the new cover for A Foot In The Door?

It’s a real floor that we made, and that’s a real man walking across it and the shadow is real. We made the floor specially for this. The tiles are made with what’s called tongue and groove, over a civilized piece of wood, to indicate the gap between the tiles. The pictures are stuck as photographs and then sealed with a varnish, and then it’s all distressed to make it look a bit older. It was very heavy and after we finished it we destroyed it, because there was nowhere to put it.

Do you consider yourself a surrealist?

No. The things we do are real, not surreal. All the things we do, we don’t do on the computer. We build sculptures, we do stunts, we hold events—it’s all done for real, about 95% of it anyway is all very real. They may be a bit odd, sometimes they’re a bit contrary, but I don’t feel like a surrealist myself.

I’m not particularly interested in dreams or things that couldn’t go together naturally a bit. It’s difficult to comment on my own work. I mean mostly I think my work is crap, but that’s probably an over paranoid view. I just tend to like it or dislike it, but I don’t think I’m a surrealist. I like the real, but with a twist, but not much of a twist. I don’t like anything too blatant really, I like humor a lot. We like to make funny pictures if we can.

I think that our work is sometimes elegant, sometimes funny, sometimes contrary, juxtaposed. I would hope that it’s optimistic because that’s how I feel.

In interviews, you talk a lot about when musicians are “in the groove.” Do you ever feel this way about your work?

Yeah I suppose I probably would. This is an expression they use to denote when they’re feeling very much in the music zone. They’re becoming at one with the music, playing the best they can, and they’re very in tune with the tune. I think this is a word that they use to denote being immersed in the music. So I wouldn’t use the same words, but there are times when I feel that.

Like with Wish You Were Here, we spent a long time with what theme, what undercurrent there was to the album, which took about five weeks because they didn’t know what the album was about, and I know I certainly didn’t. I think we slowly uncovered—not a concept—but an undercurrent. Something thrown underneath the music but is informing it. Once I found that, or once they told me what it was (I guess we found it together), the rest of it visually, came into place very easily. But it took a long time to get there.

So the “in the groove thing” does happen with me, but it just doesn’t happen very quickly. Sometimes I might have an immediate thought but rarely, mostly it takes a lot of time for the music to kind of sync into me. And when it starts to gel, at that point I would say I was in the groove, but I wouldn’t use that term. I don’t know what I would say, but I think it would be a similar sense: I had a really good idea of what to do and I felt immersed in it. I work pretty closely with musicians because I’m only interested in trying to represent the music visually. The music is the starting point, not always, but nearly always.

Have you ever done a cover where you didn’t care for the band or the music?

I think I always care about it. I mean, do I like it? If you think about it, it would be impossible for me to like all the music that I’m ever given. But what I do, is I certainly respect it. I don’t think that it has much bearing really because I don’t think it’s my job to like it. I mean if you were a Pink Floyd fan or a Muse fan or a Mars Volta fan, I don’t think you’d care whether the designer liked the music or not because you know you do. If you’re a fan, you don’t care who likes it or dislikes it if you like it. I don’t think they’re interested in my view of the music. What they’re interested, hopefully, is in my interpretation of music to visual, or my translation from one medium to another.

How many album covers have you done?

Oh don’t ask me that. That’s like asking me how old I am, not a fair question. Probably about 300, I don’t really keep count. I’m privileged to work with music, so I’m happy to work, and we work with all kind of different sorts of music. We work with bands from different countries, different ages, different genres, and mostly it’s just really stimulating. I like my job. So, in that sense, as long as I can keep working, and paying the rent as they call it over in England, then I’m relatively happy.

You studied film in school?

Yes. I think there’s quite a filmic influence on my work, but I’m not particularly conscious of it. In a way, I think all artists have all sorts of unconscious drives, admittedly they don’t know what they are. Or interests, or preoccupations. I think if you were to go through my work, over the years you’d find that I was probably very interested in things like birds, or water or trees. I’m not sure what it means, and I don’t really care very much what it might mean. They’re things that I like, they’re things that I come back to every now and then. I think that’s just very typical of all artists whatever their medium. Artists are sort of, preoccupied, and often those sorts of things reappear in their work.

Are you concerned with technology and cameras or is your main focus the overall picture?

I think we use a Pulsar back on a Hasselblad body. I’m concerned with the technology, whether it was 35mm, whether it was digital or film, I’m concerned with it in a sense. The thing that I do, it’s a performance in some strange place that nobody can get to. So if I didn’t take a picture of it, you would never see it and the band would never see it. And if the band never saw it they may wonder where their cover is, you see. So I have to take the picture. The technology is very important but I hire a good friend to do it. He’s called Rupert, he’s been working with me now for about 15 years. He’s probably sick to death of me actually but he’s still there. It’s his responsibility and if he makes a mistake we kill him. It’s very straightforward.

How do you see the album cover in today’s digital world?

Well I suspect the album cover has a rather short life in some way, although I hear vinyl is making a comeback. I think that music and visual will always invite togetherness. Whether it’s a t-shirt, whether it’s a poster, whether it’s something on the computer, whether it’s a CD or vinyl. Whether it’s an advert on TV or a billboard. Somehow it feels quite natural to do it. All things come to pass, I suspect. In England it’s very popular to do the box set and visually speaking I’m ok with that. I think there’s always a place for visual and music, for the two art forms to coexist. Album covers or CDs may be a dying breed yes, but les choses changent. Things change.

Dezeen Screen: this movie features Chris and Polly of Wrap, an illustration magazine that’s designed to be reused as giftwrap, talking about their latest issue on the theme of Dark Days, Bright Nights. Wrap is currently on sale at our Christmas shop The Temporium. Watch the movie »

Our chat with head fisherman Stewart Hawthorn from the Vancouver-based craft-raised fish farm

Feasting on Drago Centro‘s celery root panna cotta topped with lightly smoked salmon, we discovered the story behind the beautiful piece of craft-raised fish, sourced by Chef Ian Gresik from Vancouver Island’s Skuna Bay. In a world where fish populations are depleting, mercury levels are on the rise and reliable sources for wild salmon is increasingly harder to find, Skuna Bay farmers are lovingly raising salmon in the region’s glacier-fed pristine waters to give their chef customers the assurance that they are serving the best product available.

Now with their inclusion in the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Seafood for the Future program, the Skuna Bay team is achieving its goals with delicious results. We caught up with head fisherman and managing director Stewart Hawthorn to find out more about how they’re swimming their way into the hearts of salmon fans everywhere.

What is your earliest memory of fishing?

When I was a boy on a family holiday in the borders of Scotland. We went down to the local burn (brook) and threw a baited hook into the water. Shortly later I caught a small trout, about the length of my hand. It should really have been thrown back—but I was so excited that my dad let me take it home and we fried it up in butter. Then, when I was a teen, I discovered that wild fish were being caught to the point of endangering their future stocks, and at the same time I came into contact with the fish-farming community, and that really started out my lifelong experience with raising salmon to feed the world.

How did the idea for creating Skuna Bay come about?

Skuna Bay came about because after farming fish for 25 years all over the world I realized that I wanted to make a direct connection with the people who use the fish that I am responsible for raising. Most salmon is farmed by the farmer and then goes through many hands before it gets to the chef. Skuna Bay fish go direct from the farmer to the chef, ocean-fresh. The idea was that we needed to make sure we treated the fish with the same care and attention after it was pulled from the ocean as our farmers had been giving it for the three years they spent raising it.

Why salmon?

I love farming salmon because they are the best fish to farm in terms of environmental performance. They are domesticated, we don’t need a lot of feed to grow a pound of salmon; most of a farmed salmon can be eaten (about 70% yield) and overall our environmental impact is less than that of any other farmed animal. Right now there are simply not enough wild salmon to meet demand—farmed salmon are taking pressure off of wild stocks and helping to preserve them. And it is a delicious and flavorful protein that is great on its own but can also be used in many ways by the chef.

Describe your day.

Most of my day now is spent making sure our farmers can focus on raising good fish, so instead of doing it myself I make sure there are no distractions for them. I spend time with local stakeholders such as our First Nation partners to make sure we are farming in alignment with their values. I spend time listening to what our customers are saying and what they want. I spend time making sure our practices are environmentally responsible. My goal is to spend as little time in the office and as much on our farms, but what I love about working here is that I know that even when I am not there, the fish are in good hands. Our farmers live with their fish 24/7 for eight days on and then six days off. They get up in the morning and the first task of the day is to take the pulse of the farm—checking up on the fish and checking up on the ocean conditions. Only once this is done to the farmers start to feed the fish, clean the nets and undertake other farm routines. Probably the thing I am most focused on is letting experienced and passionate farmers do their job properly.

Do you ever take time out to eat at the restaurants that are serving Skuna Bay salmon?

Yes, I love to see the innovative ways that chefs are preparing our fish. My favorite is ocean-fresh salmon sashimi with a little bit of wasabi and soy sauce or a simply pan-seared salmon fillet. We had a great salmon experience at Little Dom’s in Los Angeles where chef Brandon Boudet did salmon three ways: collars, meatballs and crudo. The most novel was a salmon ice cream by chef Ian Gresik at Drago Centro.

What is your favorite salmon dish?

Sashimi is the best because it lets the quality of the salmon take over and presents it as pure as salmon should be.

What steps did you take to ensure that Skuna Bay salmon would be qualified to be part of the Aquarium of the Pacific’s Seafood for the Future program?

Everything that we do as farmers is about helping to solve the world’s environmental challenges. We make sure that we farm our fish in the right spots, natural ocean waters that are glacier-fed with perfect tidal currents. We have a really good team of farmers who know their fish and love to work in the wild natural ocean environment. We then need to make sure that we respect the fish that we are farming by looking after them really well and ensuring that they are growing up in a healthy and good condition. Finally we need to make sure that we harvest the fish really well—it is really important to give them that rigorous care and attention even as they are being harvested—it has taken more that 3 years to grow them to harvest size and we can’t let our farmers down by dropping our guard in those final moments!

For the Aquarium we had to show that we do all of these things—so showing that we have a good and qualified team of farmer and showing that they work responsibly was the critical piece.

What are your goals with Skuna Bay?

We want to get connected with chefs and to give them fish that are as good as we experience when we pull them from the ocean. We want to have the ocean to plate freshness locked in. We believe that it is possible, with the right care and attention to detail.

Dezeen editor-in-chief Marcus Fairs will chair a discussion with Milan designer Fabio Novembre at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London tonight as part of Peroni Nastro Azzurro‘s latest series of talks on Italian design. You’ll be able to watch the talk via a live stream on Dezeen Screen from 7pm.