Graphic Journey Blog

David Gentleman: London’s pride

I attended the launch of the book, London You’re Beautiful last night in the bustle of London’s Bond Street where the good and the great came to celebrate David Gentleman’s tour de force of illustration stamina.

Over the past year, come rain or shine, each day you would find Gentleman lurking in the nooks and crannies of London recording daily life with his uniquely distinctive pen and colourful wash style. 365 days later he has given birth to this beautiful book...

In its introduction David points out that, “Drawing anything makes you look at it harder and more intently, whether it’s a leaf, a building or a person; even if it’s a whole city”. The results of his marathon task is every bit as moving as a Betjeman poem.

To listen to an interview that I made with David Gentleman in 2010 about his life and work click here.

 

Kalideidoscope eyes

 

The Beatles Illustrated Lyrics epitomises the pot smoking, flower powered, rose tinted, flared trousersed, braless breasted, tight fitting, cheese clothed era of 60's free love. 

It was published in1969 and art directed by Alan Aldridge, who also populated it with many of his own illustrations along with an array of illustration talent from the period… 

All image via Michael Stoll

The Artist's Artist

The great illustrator Ronald Searle, who sadly left us for the big studio in the sky last December, created this delightful anatomy of the artist...

Now wouldn't have been good had he done one for the banker?

Ken Sequin – Glittering talent

Last year I posted a piece about one of my favourite haunts – the second hand bookshop. I showed this paperback cover from the mid 1960s, unearthed from the cavernous bowels of Skoob Books…

I mentioned that it had been part of a very nice Corgi Books series illustrated by Ken Sequin. I asked if anyone had other examples from the set. Who should contact me but Ken Sequin himself and he sent me these missing covers from that set which all feature his lovely work…

John Piper - Gorgi Book’s then Art Director - designed them. I think the typeface used is Standard Black (Akzidenz Black). But Ken believes it was a bastardised version of Helvetica. Whatever it is, it works and I love them. They still look so fresh.

A little bit about Ken Sequin. At 15 he attended Wimbledon Art School where he absorbed himself in graphics, stain glass and painting. Just three years later in 1960 he was exhibiting his work at The Young Contemporaries show. That led him on the Royal College of Art where he studied graphic design and illustration under the influential typographer Anthony Froshaug (1920 –1984). 

These were the nursery slope years of what were to become the heady days of the 60s when all things creative were beginning to converge and the RCA was the perfect melting pot.Sequin found himself exposed to many creative talents and disciplines including Marie Rambert of Ballet Rampart and the poet, Gregory Corso who read some of his work at the RCA. His own illustrative leaning was focused across the pond and particular the extraordinary collective Push Pin Studios whose output was astonishing and varied. Among them Milton Glaser, Paul Davis and Seymour Chwast. Through their influence and no doubt others like Bob Gill, Paul Hogarth, Jack Larkin, Roger Law, Julian Allen and David Hockney who were all employing a conscious naivety in their work with very sophisticated results, Ken Sequin carved out his own particular take on this form of illustration…

Sequin fuelled himself on jazz, – for which he produced posters for the RCA –

European literature from Camus to Calvino, concrete poetry and the constructions of Ian Hamilton Finlay. In 1963 he was awarded an RCA scholarship and went to Poland to research polish poster art and cinema. Throughout this he was illustrating with very little input from RCA tutors who seemed few and far between. Examples of Sequin’s work appeared in the 1966 D&AD annual …

Above two spreads from the RCA magazine ARK winter 1964

After graduating he freelanced for publishers, weekend colour supplements...

and he hada brief spell in television design, working on ABC TV’s arts programme, New Tempo produced by Mike Hodges (he of Get Carter fame).  Sequin eventually left London and pursued full time teaching, where he spent a considerable amount of his life. He returned to London in the early 90s and now concentrates on painting, and no doubt reflects on his interesting life. Here is some of his recent work…

Doing a little survey of illustration recently, I am very heartened to see resurgence in Britain and the best place to see it happening is in your local bookshop. As in the past, it is the humble book cover that is trail blazing a new dawn in innovation. The magazines and the advertising agencies mop up the talent many months later.

Lastly if anyone out there knows what became of John Piper, Gorgi Books Art Director in the 60’s, I’d love to hear from you.

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

Personal journal: 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.