Although he knew he wasn’t talented enough to be a professional musician, he wanted to be part of the industry somehow. His hours spent in the local record store, listening and examining the covers were the training ground for his career: “I spent so many happy hours in my local record store with headphones on in a booth, listening to the latest releases like Neil Young’s After the Gold Rush album, studying the covers, reading the lyric sheets. I loved the stories, the unlimited possibilities to link pop and culture.”

He initially designed book covers but in 1976 was appointed as Art Director for Polydor Records. There he designed album covers for jazz legends such as Ella Fitzgerald and Peggy Lee as well as working on other Polydor artists such as Rory Gallagher and The Who.

Then in 1977 with the dawn of punk he was asked to go and see a new band at The Greyhound pub down the road. They were a fledgling band called The Jam. So began a relationship that produced five album covers and sixteen singles covers, starting with their debut release In The City.

He also designed covers for The Cure including Killing An Arab, Three Imaginary Boys and 17 Seconds. In 1978 he left Polydor and set up the Bill Smith Studios. Between 1976 and 2019, Smith and his team worked with over 200 bands and artists creating hundreds of album covers for the biggest names of the time such as The Rolling Stones, Genesis, Kate Bush, King Crimson, Toyah Wilcox and The Cure. 

When asked in an interview which one of his album cover designs he would take on a desert island, he replied: “If I had to take one of mine it would probably be the Cure ‘3 imaginary boys’ I think I nailed it with that one.”

Read about Bill Smith's most famous album designs in his 2021 hardback here.