Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains

2017
Victoria and Albert Museum
London

Pink Floyd: Their Mortal Remains was published to accompany the V&A’s retrospective of the same name, celebrating 50 years of one of the greatest bands of all time. Barnbrook was commissioned to design the comprehensive catalogue – which is the first ever to have full access to the Pink Floyd archive.

The typographic influences for the catalogue come from 1960’s Britain, an era associated with Modernism and a whole set of social democratic ambitions. This translates into minimal ‘Swiss Style’ typography and a paired-back layout. Slight subversions allow for all the ‘A’s’ in headline text become the iconic triangular prism. This was the era when the British developed a viable national music industry and Pink Floyd were formed as a band.

The colour black is used throughout the book to express conflict, greed, time, fear, death and insanity, themes that dominated Pink Floyd’s seminal record The Dark Side of the Moon.

The book has a special lenticular cover that features the iconic prism, which shatters as the book is opened.

The cover also takes physical form as an anamorphic installation at the entrance of the exhibition that features the shattering prism.