Carlin, Deuchars and Fanelli: Three of a kind

Looking back over my blog I am horrified, and embarrassed, to discover just how few women have featured. Men have always dominated the world of graphic design and even now there are still very few design groups formed or headed up by women. Marriage and children tend to curtail or compromise their creative pursuits. A sad loss to the world of design.
 
During my many years running a design consultancy I witnessed so many talented female designers fading away the moment they had children. The demands, both physical and emotional, took them on another path, never to return.
 
But in the world of illustration there are many supremely talented female practitioners beavering away, often with children tugging at their skirts.
 
Here are three such women (two of whom I know well) who are hugely gifted, leaving highly personal fingerprints on everything they produce. They also share commonalities with one another. All three attended the Royal College of Art. All use hand-drawn lettering and collage as integral parts of their work, and all have won the V&A Illustration Award.

Sara doesn't like being photographed

Above is the wonderful Sara Fanelli, winner of many accolades including two V&A Illustration Awards and two D&AD Silvers. She also has the unique distinction of being the very first female illustrator to be made an Honorary Royal Designer for Industry, presented by the Royal Society of Arts. And this is why:

5 million people file past Sara Fanelli's Tate Modern Artist Timeline wall

 

The cover and spreads from her book, Sometimes I Think, Sometimes I am

Millennium stamp for Royal Mail

 

Above the cover and spreads from her recent book, The Onion's Great Escape

The cover for Pinokkio

Experiencing Sara’s work is a tiny glimpse into her highly imaginative, eccentric and magical mind.

This is Laura, I think she likes being photographed

The second of my trio is Laura Carlin, another V&A-awarded illustrator. She was also awarded with the Quentin Blake Award two years running and the 2004 National Magazine Award, amongst many others. Her work is thoughtful, sensitive, inventive and always beautiful:

Spreads for Journal newspaper with Studio Dempsey

 

For The New York Times Magazine

For The Guardian

Cover and image from the award winning Iron Man

Above assorted images from Laura's prolific output

I have had the pleasure of working with Laura on many occasions and the experience has always been sublime. In addition to her beguiling illustration work, she has, over the past three years or so, thrown herself into making ceramics, producing a wonderful array of pots, dishes and figures.

Above Laura's foray into the world of ceramics

Complete book Le Grand Meaulnes

Laura's work has a highly sophisticated naivety, which directly touches 20^thcentury British art and 1960s illustration, a period that she finds very inspiring.

Marion photographed by Tom of Brighton in her Islington studio

The final member of this talented trio is Marion Deuchars, another winner of a V&A Award along with a mantelpiece more. As with Sara and Laura she has made hand lettering a part of her work, and in Marion’s case it’s a very big part. I think her unique calligraphic style has been exposed to more people than anyone I know - well, apart from Sara's.

The distictive handwriting that is Marion Deuchars

Just four of many book covers and jackets by Marion

Above, the windows of Cass Art and drawing pad designs below

Marion is the closest of the three to a graphic designer in her approach. She knows exactly where to place a seemingly random mark or splat to create impact, and when to use space to engender tension.

Marion's hand lettering graced the Shakespeare stamps, in collaboration with Hat Trick

In recent years Marion has embarked on engaging with children through her two highly successful books Let’s Make Some Great Art and Let’s Make Some Great Fingerprint Art. They have a wonderful immediacy through her handwriting and bold brush illustrations.

 Above: the two highly successful books to get children away from the TV and towards the drawing pad

So there we have it. Three women. Three distinctive styles bringing enormous joy to our lives. Long may they continue.

 

Comments

[AndrewLey]

Thank you; whilst I was familiar with the work of Marion Deuchars, you've opened my eyes to the work of Sara and Laura.

I was also interested to read your description of female designers "fading away the moment they had children". I've always felt it was a bit too simple an explanation when some have implied the relative lack of really influential female designers is due to an "old boys' club" at play.

Have you kept in touch with any of these female designers? Are any of them now pursuing a solo/freelance career in the same way these illustrators have?

[mike dempsey]

Hello Andrew - Indeed I have kept in touch with a number of the female designers who worked with me over a 30-year period. Most took time out to have children. Some had more and gave up design completely. Others have managed to continue with some freelance work. Unfortunately if you get off the design roundabout it is often very difficult to get back on, as there's a whole bunch of new people sitting on the horses. Even more so now with so many students spewing out of the art schools each year, with fewer jobs to absorb them. And your ‘old boys’ point it is very true. Sadly while the women are away the men build their little thiefdoms and feed their egos.

[Paul Ashley Brown]

Hello.
I'm really enjoying your blog. The three artists above are indeed tremendous, and I had the pleasure of meeting the rather wonderful Sara Fanelli as a visiting lecturer when I was doing my Illustration Degree at UWE over ten years ago. I'd also add the utterly brilliant Jill Calder and the beautifully subtle Aude Van Rynn to the trio above of examples of truly outstanding illustrators, irrespective of their gender.