Hugh Syme is an artist with a long career designing album covers for bands such as Rush, Def Leppard, Dream Theatre, Megadeath, and many others. Originally from Toronto, Syme has lived in New Castle, Indiana off and on since 1987. When working in Indiana, he collaborated with a Muncie-based photographer for set pieces, worked with local people as models, and used nearby architecture to construct the final images for his work.
Syme began his career in the music business playing keyboards and creating the album art for the Ian Thomas Band. The manager for the Thomas band also managed Rush. In 1975 he and Rush drummer Neil Peart asked Syme to do the album art for the Caress of Steel album. This launched Syme’s career, now spanning nearly 50 years. In Peart’s introduction to Syme’s recent book Art of Rush, he said that Syme creates with “both talent and love.” He praised “Hugh’s eye for proportion and ‘negative space’ – seldom understood as luxury, as space always does to humans.”
Syme’s clients include Time Warner, Disney, Forbes, NFL, Virgin, David Geffen, Mercury, SONY and many record labels too numerous to list. Syme has been nominated for the Juno Award (Canadian equivalent of the Grammy) a total of 18 times. He won for Best Album Graphics or Design in 1982 for Rush’s Moving Pictures, 1986 for Rush’s Power Windows, 1989 for Ian Thomas’s Levity, 1990 for Rush’s Presto, and 1992 for Rush’s Role the Bones.
Since 2020, he has co-hosted the popular “Music Buzz” podcast with fellow Hoosiers Dane Clark, drummer for John Mellencamp, and Andy Wilson, president of Elevate Entertainment.
