“I didn’t expect the albums to last the way they have. If I’d known, I would have done better. The bands might say that too!” Genesis sleeve artist Colin Elgie started with the vaguest brief imaginable, and won a whole year in the limelight

Colin Elgie.

In 1975, young illustrator Colin Elgie was approached with a brief he couldn’t resist: to design the cover for Genesis’ first post-Peter Gabriel album A Trick Of The Tail. The catch – there were no songs, no lyrics and he hadn’t even met the band. Marking the record’s 50th anniversay, Elgie looked back on the commission that helped establish his career.

Colin Elgie is, as he cheerfully admits, “a lucky bugger.” As a young man he studied at East Ham Technical College under the tutorship of George Hardie, the graphic designer and Hipgnosis affiliate behind covers for the first Led Zeppelin album, Pink Floyd’s The Dark Side Of The Moon and Wish You Were Here, and 10cc’s Sheet Music.