Led Zeppelin debut album

Photo: Neil Priddey. License: All Rights Reserved.

George Hardie was summoned to meet Peter Grant and Jimmy Page at Rak Records' office in Oxford Street, London, 18th October, 1968. He remembered walking past the Marquee Club and seeing a line of people queuing up to see a new group called Led Zeppelin. He met Page and Grant and was shown a photo of the Hindenburg airship disaster. Hardie created a 7 inch square tracing paper stippled facsimile of the photo for the album cover. He was paid £60 for the finished artwork. The band logo/typeface was a modified version ofFuturaExtra Black with the sharp points of the 'Z' truncated. The turquoise colour of the original sleeve is very rare as it was replaced within a few weeks of issue with the standard orange colour most commonly associated with this iconic album cover.