Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) (2023) Plot Summary Explained

Their chance encounter came during a Cambridge drug bust in 1964, and it developed into a lasting creative and business partnership. Four years later, they turned that partnership into Hipgnosis, formally founding the studio in 1968.

Foreshadowing: The 1964 encounter establishes the partnership whose first major test is the 1968 Pink Floyd commission.

• storm thorgerson
• aubrey powell
• cambridge encounter
• hipgnosis origins

Hipgnosis's first major commission was Pink Floyd's A Saucerful of Secrets in 1968, and Thorgerson and Powell were already close associates of the band. The project gave the new studio a breakthrough success and helped establish its album-cover reputation. It also began a longer collaboration, as Hipgnosis went on to design several more covers for Pink Floyd.

Foreshadowing: The debut commission foreshadows the studio's later run of covers for the same band.

• pink floyd
• a saucerful of secrets
• debut album cover
• hipgnosis breakthrough

Hipgnosis favored inventive, practical photography and unconventional design techniques over conventional approaches. Thorgerson and Powell used those experiments to turn record sleeves into bold, often surreal visual concepts, establishing the studio's signature aesthetic.

• hipgnosis photography
• experimental photography
• surreal album art
• design techniques

The rise of punk rock in the late 1970s shifted music and visual culture away from the elaborate, polished album covers that had defined Hipgnosis. As that style became less fashionable, the studio's signature approach lost the cultural momentum that had powered its album-cover work through the 1970s.

• punk rock
• album cover trends
• late 1970s
• decline of hipgnosis style

Thorgerson and Powell moved into video production and other artistic ventures when elaborate album-cover work fell out of fashion. The pivot allowed the partnership to carry its creativity into a new medium rather than end with the decline of its best-known format.

Foreshadowing: The late-1970s punk turn points toward the pair's later move into video and other projects.

• thorgerson powell
• music video production
• career pivot
• album cover decline

Squaring the Circle (The Story of Hipgnosis) shows how Hipgnosis treated album packaging as a form of conceptual visual art. Its bold photography and unconventional methods became influential across 1970s rock, changing what audiences and designers expected an album cover could be.

• rock album art
• visual identity
• hipgnosis influence
• 1970s design

Storm Thorgerson's death in 2013 left Hipgnosis without one half of its original creative partnership. The documentary responds with Aubrey Powell's extensive testimony and recollections from people who knew Thorgerson, preserving the shared story while giving the loss emotional weight.

• storm thorgerson death
• documentary tribute
• aubrey powell
• hipgnosis legacy

The documentary presents the cover designs as a creative collaboration between Hipgnosis and the musicians whose work they represented. Noel Gallagher and other artists who worked with the studio give firsthand accounts of the unusual process, showing how a musical project became a shared visual concept.

• musician interviews
• noel gallagher
• creative collaboration
• album artwork process

Hipgnosis's best-known images, including Pink Floyd's Dark Side of the Moon, have outlived the era when elaborate album covers were fashionable. The documentary returns to modern-day fans, including Noel Gallagher, to show that the artwork remains culturally influential decades after its creation.

Foreshadowing: The studio's creation of iconic covers in the 1970s lays the groundwork for the modern appreciation shown through later fan interviews.

• hipgnosis legacy
• modern fans
• dark side of the moon
• iconic album covers

No. Pink Floyd was foundational to Hipgnosis, but the studio also created major 1970s covers for Led Zeppelin, Peter Gabriel, Paul McCartney and Wings, and 10cc. Those commissions established Hipgnosis as a leading creative force across rock rather than simply a designer linked to one band.

• led zeppelin
• peter gabriel
• paul mccartney
• 10cc
• hipgnosis clients

Anton Corbijn brings his own deep knowledge of photography and graphic design to the film. That background informs the documentary's visual sensibility and its appreciation of Hipgnosis's craft, giving the history a practitioner's perspective.

• anton corbijn
• documentary direction
• photography
• graphic design