‘Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)’ Review: Indelible Images by Design

The album cowl for Pink Floyd’s “Animals” is a collage that exhibits a pig flying over Battersea Power Station in London. Originally, it was supposed to be {a photograph}, however controlling an inflatable pig at that top was not straightforward (the truth is, it floated into an space the place flights method Heathrow Airport). Nor was it straightforward to have a person stand nonetheless after he had been set on fireplace, one thing that was achieved to create a picture for the band’s previous album, “Wish You Were Here.” Nor was arranging for a stressed sheep to lounge on a psychiatrist’s sofa within the Hawaiian surf — {a photograph} that in the end constituted solely a small inset on the unique cowl for the 10cc album “Look Hear?”

These are among the many anecdotes shared in “Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis),” a documentary from Anton Corbijn (“Control”) on Hipgnosis, a British design studio that, over roughly 15 years beginning in 1968, devised a number of the strangest and most progressive artwork ever placed on information. (The identify is a portmanteau of “hip” and “gnostic” pronounced like “hypnosis.”)

“Squaring the Circle” has the texture of an official portrait. Aubrey Powell, referred to as Po, who based Hipgnosis with Storm Thorgerson, holds the middle of gravity among the many interviewees, who embrace lots of his pals and colleagues. The visuals — sharp black-and-white present-day footage; a lot of images from Hipgnosis’s heyday — are predictably hanging.

Structurally, this film defaults to recounting the genesis of 1 concept and collaboration after one other. (“When you get a call from a Beatle, it was a bit like a call from God,” Powell says of Paul McCartney.) “Squaring the Circle” is slick and pleasing sufficient, however it is usually, like the corporate it chronicles, one thing of a boutique merchandise, and the reminiscences develop faintly monotonous after some time.

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis)
Not rated. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes. In theaters.