A New Year with some old graphics. Only by studying the past can we fathom present and future trends in design. So here is another of the interviews I carried out for Design Week under the banner of 'Heroes'. This one is from 2001 with the graphic designer Raymond Hawkey.
Banner head for Daily Express, 1958
I was first
introduced to Raymond Hawkey's work at an evening class on a November evening
in 1961. Our teacher - who during the day worked in the design department of
the Daily Express - showed us examples of work produced there. This was a
series of illustrated banner heads, an innovation that had been pioneered by
Hawkey. These mini graphic triggers helped to direct readers towards a
particular feature. They were produced using a simple photographic line
technique, ideal for crude letterpress printing. They looked startling within
the context of the paper's conventional layout.
Fast-forward 40 years, and I
am heading for the lift in an 18-floor, 1960s tower block that looms over
London's fashionable Notting Hill. This is where Hawkey has lived for over 30
years and I am about to meet him for the first time. As he welcomes me into his
flat, I am taken aback by the view from its panoramic window. It is quite
breathtaking to see London looking magical on this particularly clear night
with a stream of jewel-like twinkling lights from the constantly moving traffic
below.
The first thing I notice about Hawkey is that he is immaculately
turned out. So much so that I became a little self-conscious about the state of
my rather scuffed boat shoes and crumpled corduroy jacket. This attention to
his appearance was just as evident in the presentation of his home. It
reflected his vision and farsightedness in selecting Charles and Ray Eames,
Eero Saarinen and Hille furniture when he first took on the flat. All looked remarkably
current and orderly in this classic late 1960s setting.
Photo copyright by David Bailey
Most of the walls
were taken up with Hawkey's passion for all things nautical; a ship's wheel,
compass, figurehead, prints, photographs and paintings of tall ships, all
beautifully arranged. As a boy Hawkey had lived by the sea, which he loved. I
suspect this was his way of keeping that connection going in the heart of a
throbbing city.
Hawkey was born in Plymouth in 1930, an only child. His
father worked as a commercial traveller. Neither of Hawkey's parents had any
creative leanings. Indeed, his father had decided that he wanted his son to
become an accountant, something he himself had hankered after. But the young
Hawkey developed a natural gift for drawing, which must have been a genetic
throwback to a creative ancestor. He was happiest with a pencil and paper,
escaping into a fantasy world drawn from his fertile imagination. Hawkey was a
bright boy and won a scholarship to grammar school.
It was here that he was
singled out by the headmaster--a man with artistic interests himself--who
recognised Hawkey's creative ability. He greatly encouraged the young Hawkey
and directed him towards a course in general arts at the Plymouth School of
Art. From the ages of 16 to 20, Hawkey immersed himself in what had become an
all-consuming passion. He achieved a National Diploma in Design and won a
scholarship to the Royal College of Art to study illustration.
But Hawkey
found the RCA illustration course in 1950 very dull, punctuated with endless life
drawing classes and a distinctly nostalgic approach to the craft. He managed to
persuade his tutor to let him switch to the graphics course.
He quickly
secured a post on the RCA magazine ARK as assistant art director. A little
later he became its art director. He saw this as an opportunity to push the
visual presentation of the magazine forward, which, until that point, had a
rather classical dusty feel. He outraged the rector Robin Darwin by introducing
illustration and photography to ARK's covers. To supplement his small grant, he
took on illustration commissions from the Central Office of Information. He
also helped out the picture editor of The Sunday Graphic--a long since defunct
title.
Towards the end of his time at the RCA he was increasingly moving in
publishing and editorial circles. One evening when helping out at a literary
launch party, a colleague noticed that a young man had gatecrashed the
proceedings and he asked Hawkey to politely, but firmly show him the door.
Hawkey, however, struck up a conversation with this eager young man - who as it
turned out was also attending the RCA, was also studying design, was also an
Aquarian, had the same fanatical love of detail, shared the same dry sense of
humour and also the contempt for a lot of the pomposity evident at the RCA. A
rare meeting of hearts and minds had taken place and there, amid the clinking
wine glasses and literary banter, a life-long friendship was formed.
As it
turned out, this literary backdrop was going to have a dramatic effect on both
of their lives. In particular the young gatecrasher's. His name was Len
Deighton.
Prior to graduating from the RCA, Hawkey entered a design talent
competition organised by Vogue magazine. He not only won, but was offered a job
by the magazine's parent company Conde Nast. Here he became art director of
magazine promotion and he quickly familiarised himself with the editorial
world. He spent three happy years there. There was a short period with the ad
agency Colman Prentis and Varley as an art director. In 1959 he was offered a
position with Beaverbrook Newspapers to art direct a new magazine that was set
to rival the great American title Fortune. Alas, it never saw the light of day,
but Hawkey's talents had not gone unnoticed and he was made design director of
the Daily Express.
It was here that he quickly introduced graphic devices
into the editorial pages. He trail-blazed the use of diagrams to help demystify
complex news items. He often teamed up with a reporter and went on assignments
to crime scenes. It was in this context that his work contributed to the arrest
of a rapist and murderer through his accurate reconstruction of the attacker's
likeness as described by a witness, before identikit pictures were the norm.
Hawkey's graphic use of banner heads revolutionised the look of newspaper
features and very quickly other major papers followed suit.
While Hawkey was
at The Daily Express, Deighton had established a career in advertising as an
art director. This was a love/hate relationship for him as he found the
profession overrun by ex-public school types, whom he found tiresome. However,
he redirected this irritation into writing. Hawkey remembers being handed a
draft manuscript by Deighton in 1960. It was called The lpcress File. On
reading it, Hawkey realised that Deighton could afford to turn his back on the
advertising world. Because, there on the page was Harry Palmer the
bespectacled sophisticated working class antihero who enjoyed cooking and
worked as an intelligence officer.
Although very capable himself, Deighton
asked Hawkey to design the cover of The lpcress File...
Jacket for the first edition of The Ipcress File designed by Hawkey in 1962
What Hawkey did with it
was one of the key moments in design history. It is important to view this
piece of work within the context of the period. Hawkey's photographic use of
inanimate objects to give a narrative dimension to the cover was startlingly
new and made a dramatic impact on the publishing scene. The publisher, Hodder,
found the design too spartan with its black and white photography, plain
background and small undifferentiated typography, but both Deighton and Hawkey
held firm. They were right, because on publication in 1962, The lpcress File
sold out within 24 hours.
A few years later, Michael Caine...
Michael Caine as Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File 1965 directed by Sidney J. Furie
was to make Harry
Palmer his own in the film version of the book. The image, so perfectly
captured by David Bailey in his classic 1965 Caine portrait...
still inspires
many a young designer to emulate the look today.
In 1964, Hawkey became
presentation director of the Observer and its colour magazine, concentrating on
enhancing layout and improving the quality of the magazine's covers. In
parallel with this, he became a much sought-after book cover designer. He was
always linked with Deighton's work...
but was also the favoured designer for the
work of Kingsley Amis, Jane Gaskill, Ian Fleming, Thomas Hinde, Gavin Lyall,
Frederick Forsyth and many others.
Hawkey's dramatic influence and modern
approach to book cover design spawned imitators that turned his simple graphic
approach into a design cliche. To a certain extent Hawkey became a victim of
his own success. The clarity and inventiveness of his later cover work was
often defused by over-large typography brought about, I suspect, by the
increasingly aggressive publishing sales departments who have always managed to
dilute creative work.
One of Hawkeys most memorable pieces came about once
again through Deighton, who had formed a film production company. He had
written the film script for Oh! What a Lovely War. It was to be Richard
Attenborough's directorial debut and Deighton commissioned Hawkey to design the
film's titles. He approached this with the perfectionism that had become his
trademark. To convey the tragedy of the First World War, he used carefully
chosen objects, sensitively photographed by David Cripps to create a building
narrative over the sequence...
Above the front title sequence for Oh! What a Lovely War directed by Richard Attenborough 1969
Starting with items reflecting the jingoistic
flag-waving, King and Country mentality, the images move on to symbolise the
ultimate result of war. Death is represented by a skull and, in the last frame,
a lone red poppy. Although a simple series of still images with the titles
superimposed, the sequence retains its tragic impact. In another designer's
hands it could have easily slipped into a nostalgic pastiche.
In 1974 Hawkey
turned the tables on the publishing world by becoming a thriller writer
himself. Encouraged greatly by Deighton, over a ten-year period he has produced
three novels, Wild Card, Side Effect and It. All have received glowing reviews
and an option has been taken up on It for a possible feature film.
Now into
his seventies, Hawkey understandably takes things a little easier these days,
but in addition to writing a new novel, he still occasionally acts as an
editorial consultant. Having a bolthole in Brighton has enabled him to enjoy
the lure of the sea with his charming wife Mary, whom he married 12 years ago.
By Mike Dempsey © Centaur Publications 2001
Recent Comments