Roger Dean (artist)

Roger Dean
Roger Dean, DragonCon 2008.
Born	(1944-08-31) 31 August 1944 (age 72) Ashford, Kent, England, United Kingdom
Nationality	English
Known for	Artist, designer, architect, publisher

William Roger Dean (born 31 August 1944), known as Roger Dean, is an English artist, designer, and publisher. He is best known for his work on posters and album covers for musicians, which he began painting in the late 1960s. The artists for whom he did the most art are English rock bands Yes and Asia.

The covers often feature exotic, fantasy landscapes. His work has sold more than sixty million copies worldwide.

Dean was born in Ashford, Kent, but he spent most of his childhood moving around the world with his British Army father. The family returned to England in 1959 where he was educated at Ashford Grammar School. He later earned a National Diploma of Design from the Canterbury College of Art (now the University for the Creative Arts). In 1968, he graduated from the Royal College of Art in London where he was a student of Professor David Pye. His Master's thesis was on 'The psychology of the built environment'.{https://prezi.com/mnkfrm4zkcmf/roger-dean/ } He has lived in East Sussex since 1972.

Beginning in the field of design, he preferred to distinguish between design (the reworking of existing models), and invention (making something new). One of his inventions was the "sea urchin chair." It was a foam chair, which, though appearing spherical, would conform to the sitter, who could obtain a seated position of varying angles. Later, he was asked to design a "landscape" of similar seating for a club belonging to Ronnie Scott. His "retreat pod" chair design was featured in the film A Clockwork Orange.

His first album cover work was in 1968 for the Gun. He also did the artwork for Atomic Rooster's album In Hearing of... This album cover hinted at the inimitable style for which he would later become famous. In the same year Dean produced the cover for the first album by the African/Caribbean band Osibisa, which featured a hybrid insect/elephant. This was much closer to Dean's work as we came to know it and it attracted widespread attention. Later that year, he began the partnership with the progressive rock bands Yes (and Asia) for which he is best known. His first design for Yes was for their album Fragile. Dean designed the now-classic Yes "bubble" logo, which first appeared on the album Close to the Edge, and continued to create covers for the band until as recently as 2014 (Heaven & Earth). Yes guitarist Steve Howe said, "There is a pretty tight bond between our sound and Roger's art." In addition to their album covers, Dean also contributed to his brother Martyn Dean's stage set designs for the band.