By now, you probably know that the cover of Pink Floyd’s new album, The Endless River, was designed by 18-year-old, Egyptian Ahmed Emad Eldin. This album is turning out to be full of surprises in the most pleasant way!
The Endless River is a tribute to late Pink Floyd keyboardist, Rick Wright. The album is said to be mostly instrumental and consisting of four sides. it will contain music that is highly based on tracks which David Gilmour and Nick Mason recorded with Rick Wright when working together on The Division Bell.
The album’s cover is the picture of a young man in an open, white shirt, sailing on clouds towards the sun. An eerie, haunting, yet beautiful image that suits the Floyd’s style very well. This cover is one of the very few Pink Floyd albums cover that was not designed by Storm Thorgerson. Storm – who passed away last year – was known for his surreal artwork. The “prism cover” for Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is one of the most iconic album covers of all time. After his passing, no one was certain who the Floyd will go to for their album cover. They finally went for Ahmed Emad. We just had to speak with the mind behind this album cover!
Do you believe in luck or hard work?
The harder you work the better you get. Let hard work meet with luck.
Where do you see yourself in the next years?
The main thing I really see is that I still need to work more to improve myself, and be able to combine my academic future – as I’m going to study Pharmacy – with art.
Did you find any obstacles before in presenting your work to Egyptian agencies?
The main obstacle – not only in Egypt but also all over the world – is that most of companies want an employee, not an artist. So most of them refuse to work by piece. Plus that some bad people are giving freelancing and online work a very bad reputation.
How does it feel like to have a band as big as Pink Floyd use your artwork?
Check the cover, put a proud happy man instead. This is exactly how it feels.
Pink Floyd almost always had Storm Thorgerson do their album covers. Has his work ever influenced yours?
Storm Thorgerson is still a real art storm. You can not compare or even match any art work with his arts. What I really can say is that I will do my best to be like him one day.
Did you in any way see something like this happening to you?
Never. Once I signed the contract I realized that it would be the greatest thing ever and it was much better than I’ve ever imagined.
