Atom Heart Mother is a Pink Floyd album released in October of 1970. This album reached number 1 on the charts. This album is very unique due to the fact that the cover art is just simply…a cow. This art cover was designed and created by the art studio Hipgnosis. Hipgnosis knew that Pink Floyd wanted something new yet plain. Storm and his partner Aubrey Powell drove to a rural area and spent time photographing cows in a field which is where they had finally found their subject for this album cover. Pink Floyd was not the band that wanted to be limited to one specific image or known by one specific thing, so Pink Floyd ended up absolutely loving this weird and simple photograph for their album cover. There is no typography seen on this cover, which goes to prove that Pink Floyd doesn’t need their name plastered on the all over the artwork to be recognizable. Storm Thorgerson states that “I think the cow represents, in terms of the Pink Floyd, part of their humor, which I think is often underestimated or just unwritten about." Pink Floyd rarely had any typography on their album covers and when they did it was very intentional and usually miniscule. Pink Floyd's albums were mostly photographed and were usually done so by their long time friends Hipgnosis. Hipgnosis liked to think out of the ordinary and had a lot of close relationships with many of the psychedelic artists of the 70s, which is most likely why Pink Floyd chose to grow with them and expand with them as artists. Hipgnosis had an incredible impact and influence on the Pink Floyd image. One example is the very well known Dark Side of the Moon album cover art, which was also produced by Aubrey Powell. The cow on the cover of the Atom Heart Mother has also become just as recognized and popular in the world of album covers. This attempt of creating album cover art that could shock the world surely did produce the effect they were looking for.
