You may not be familiar with 70′s English super group Emerson, Lake and Palmer (ELP) or H. R. Giger, the designer of their logo, but you’re probably aware of his illustration and set design work in the movies.
Before the release of Brain Salad Surgery in 1973, British super group Emerson Lake and Palmer didn’t have a logo per se, but when keyboardist Keith Emerson saw Swiss artist Hans Rudolf “Ruedi” Giger‘s airbrushed 
illustration work for the cover, he decided to make the stylized E, L and P from it (right) the official band mark.
Despite being released over thirty years ago, the album art – a die cut fold out that opened up to reveal a painting based on Giger’s wife – is still featured on most ‘best album art’ lists. The die cut aspect of the original vinyl release is not featured on most subsequent CD re-releases.
According to a book written by Giger, the band never paid his bill for the artwork, even though the imagery has become part of the band’s overall brand, and is even featured on the fuel tank of Emerson’s Harley Davidson and on his personal website.
Most of you will be more familiar with Giger’s work in the movie Alien, for which he designed the original monster, as well as most of the alien spaceship featured in the first half of the film. He won an Academy Award for Best Achievement for Visual Effects in 1979 for that work.
Giger has worked with many recording artists, designing album covers and logos for Deborah Harry (Blondie), Danzig and The Dead Kennedys.
This is part of an ongoing series of So You Think You Know Logos? Each day, we’ll publish information, interesting trivia and back stories about famous logos. Every Friday, we’ll publish a quiz that will feature that week’s featured designs, as well as a few surprise additions. To keep up in the latest logo design trivia, subscribe to our blog via e-mail or through your favorite news reader.
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