Graphic Journey Blog

Travelling light

There was a time when all you needed was a little pot of Indian ink, a nibbed pen, some Kent or CS10 board, plus your imagination.  The images below (with the exception of one) are from a book I bought back in 1963. Its title - Drawing for Radio Times. It was by R.D. Usherwood who was art editor of the magazine from 1950 to 1960. It was a period when Radio Times was printed letterpress and the finest reproduction screen was only 65dpi.

So simple clarity was the order of the day.

These restrictions produced a plethora of highly individual and beautiful work from a stable of regular illustrators who graced the pages of the magazine. Each week I would cut out and keep the illustrations created by my favourites. I’d copy them, using the techniques that I thought they had used – blotting, scratching, smudging and even using my fingerprints. I was never brave enough to send my offerings to the Radio Times.  Here is an example of my efforts from the early 70's...

These little works of art that appeared in the magazine were there to attract and entice you to the programmes  they were highlighting.

The tradition of using intelligent, and gifted illustrators continued well into the 1970’s under the skilful art directorship of David Driver.  Driver steered the Radio Times into a new era of colour and more sophisticated methods of printing. In the process he introduced not only a large number of new and highly talented illustrators but lashings of  inspiration and suprise. Sadly today the Radio Times is an utter mess – typographically, photographically, journalistically and most of all illustratively.  Instead of creating a unique personality for itself it apes the many listing publications now on the magazine racks. It is a casualty of crass commercialism treating its readers like morons. 

To give you a sampling of the Radio Times in its heyday for  monochrome illustration, here is some work from the 50s and 60s…

 

Jim Russell 

Christopher Chamberlain

Jim Russell 

Robin Jacques 

Leonard Rosomann

Geraldine Spence 

Terence Greer

Barry Wilkinson

Designer as illustrator

I was drawing long before I could read.  The gift of being able to communicate through illustration is not only very useful but it often mesmerises those that can’t draw.  From the late 60s to the mid 70s I illustrated as much as I designed.

When I founded my old consultancy CDT Design in '79, all of my illustration stopped – such is the pressure of running a company.  Throughout the 90’s I was very into photography  (more of which another time) and in parallel I painted abstracts.

But going back to those earlier days I thought you might like to see some of my efforts. Many were for book covers while others were semi autobiographical.  Here they are in no particular order from around 1968 to 1976…

Not invented here

I’m sure you have seen the above delightful ‘Unboxed’ Audi Q5 commercial. But I’d like to make a plug for, what I feel sure must have been its genesis. This… 

It’s by the late great Saul Stineberg 1914-1999…

 

He was one of America’s favorite artists. His work was, and still is, full of inventiveness, wit and beauty. It graced the pages of the New Yorker for nearly sixty years and he was an inspiration to many of the twentieth century’s designers and illustrators. Steinberg took his lines to places where few other illustrators would dare to venture…

You can catch some of his work in Saul Steinberg: Illuminations at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London until February 15

Scraping the barrel

While rummaging through my seemingly endless pile of books and magazines I unearthed a copy of The Association of Illustrators Newsletter and found this spread. It's from 1975 and ties in with my earlier post (Scraping a living) on the dyeing craft of scraper board artists. If you click on to this spread...

you should be able to read the story of Bill Butt, scraper man extraordinaire. But then again you may not be able to read a damm thing. Anyway Illustrators, Norman Messenger and Peter Brookes were big fans of Bill's and wax lyrical about the man and his technique. Apart from Bill Sanderson there are few exponents of the craft which is sad as I feel it could be used to great effect in a completely new way.

Taking a Line for a Walk

How often have you heard old farts like me saying – “ Oh yes, it’s terrible how students aren't encouraged to draw anymore. I blame the art schools you know”. That sort of thing? Well, I’m not going to say anything because, in this particular case, pictures speak louder than words…

Just fifteen reasons why. I could go on. That's why I love illustration so much. Think about it.

Scraping a living

There was a time when the quality of reproduction in most daily newspapers was so bad – mostly 65-dot screen – that photographs of products, for use in advertisements, were redrawn in scraperboard.
Like this..

and this..

This was a very precise craft and back in the 50s and 60s most jobbing studios had a scraperboard artist on the staff. The only exponent I know today is the very talented Bill Sanderson who has been scraping away for over thirty years. Here is a lovely image he created for one on the 48 Royal Mail Millennium stamps published in 1999.