Richard Evans born in 1945 on the same day as Eric Clapton and that's where the similarity ends.
He studied fashion design at Nottingham School of Art in the 1960s followed by a post-graduate course in graphic design at Leicester. His forays into the rag trade were as a shoe designer in the early 70s, putting multi-coloured platforms under the feet of Elton John, Roxy Music and The Osmonds. It was at this time that he met Aubrey Powell and Storm Thorgerson and later worked at Hipgnosis with them as their graphic designer for several years, eventually setting up his own design studio.
Since 1976 he has worked with The Who, designing anything and everything for them from album covers to tour merchandise, his first assignment being a centrefold nude photograph of Keith Moon for a Who tour programme – talk about a baptism by fire!
He has produced work for a variety of artists including The Doors, Robert Plant, Led Zeppelin, Van Morrison, Public Image Limited, Pete Townshend, The Beach Boys, Pink Floyd, Bill Wyman, King Sunny Ade, World Party and Johann Sebastian Bach. Recent years have seen him designing several books on popular music including 'Bill Wyman's Blues Odyssey' and 'Rolling With The Stones', the packaging for the Who DVD documentary, 'The Kids Are Alright' and the 'Tommy/Quadrophenia' DVD opera box set.