George Hardie is an illustrator and graphic designer born in Britain, and is best known for his cover album art that featured rock musicians and bands. Hardie studied at the Royal College of Art in London, and shortly after he partnered with Nicholas Thirkell Associates (NTA) and collaborated with people like Bob Lawrie, Bush Hollyhead, and Malcolm Harrison.
His most prominent covers are for bands like Led Zeppelin’s debut album, Pink Floyd’s “The Dark Side”, and “Wish You Were Here”.
Hardie’s early work seemed to have encompassed photography and collage-work, however his later works would gain a conceptual feel towards the compositions; transitioning from photography to a more graphic design approach.
Overall, I personally believe that George Hardie’s works represents one of the turning points in illustration where conceptual illustration and graphic design meet, and start to co-exist with each other in unison. The flat illustration aesthetic is pleasing and often hard at times for me to appreciate, however Hardie’s compositions are well thought out and the colours are well used too.
Links:
http://www.eyemagazine.com/feature/article/the-rules-of-the-game-extract
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Hardie_(artist)
https://www.moma.org/artists/46466
http://ideasondesign.net/speakers/speakers/george-hardie/
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