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 had a 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.