I'm going to tell you the story about the creation, and ultimate demise, of a design company. It's about the one I started in 1978. To set the scene here is a little of what was going on back then...
It is the summer of 1978. Two fresh-faced 30-something graphic designers are sitting in the one-time ballroom of an elegant Georgian house in St James’s Place, Mayfair. It belonged to the publisher William Collins. There, over a light lunch, these two animated figures decided to start a design company. They were Mike Dempsey, (me - I worked as art director of the William Collins paperback imprint, Fontana.) and Ken Carroll ex-publishing, freelance designer. At the time we were inseparable, best friends with a healthy professional rivalry and also completely void of any experience of running a company. We were about to plan our journey into the unknown.
It is rare in life to find a real soulmate, someone whose thoughts, interests and passions mirror your own exactly. That was how it was then with Messers Carroll & Dempsey.
During the latter part of 1978, Britain was engulfed in what was called ‘The Winter of Discontent’ – an ongoing saga of strikes as a result of the Labour government's attempt to control inflation by imposing rules on the public sector...
The scene in London's Leicester Square, in February 1979 – just a month after we'd opened our doors – during the "winter of discontent" as public service workers went on strike, leaving rubbish piled up in streets.
It was in this deeply unstable economic climate that we opened our fledgeling design company, with the added dimension of an exceptionally bitter cold end to 1978.
Our first studio was located on the top floor of this small building in New Bond Street, in London’s West End…
A pure fluke to be situated at such a prestigious address. As it turned out the space had been rented to an abortion referral office. They had left in a rush, fleeing rent and leaving behind furniture and files, the contents of which revealed a procession of young women, mostly from Ireland and Italy, who had undergone abortions. It was a harsh reality. The files all ended up in black bin bags. And in that freezing December of 1978 we painted out the rooms’ horrid past, added floor to ceiling felt pin boards and a wall bedecked with Victorian enamelled advertising signs and got on with our dream. This is the very brass plate that I screwed to the front door of our entrance at 76 New Bond Street in January 1979 at the opening of our little company….
I retrieved this brass plate when we moved from New Bond Street.
This was our first business card. Two interlocking chain links summed us up perfectly.
In the beginning, it was just the two of us, plus Paula, our secretary- she couldn’t type that well, but was delightful and had great hair and fingernails.
Paula Ng our first secretary and employee.
Our days were spent listening to a combination of soundtrack albums from famous movies, Eric Clapton and Elvis Costello, interrupted only by daily liquid lunches at a nearby hostelry. In between, we worked on a diet of books, book covers, television promotional material and the odd magazine or two. And we loved it. Ken Carroll had a very open, warm and rather dynamic personality – having attended 18 schools, due to his father being in the RAF and subject to regular reposting – with the ability to befriend almost anyone. But due to slight deafness in one ear he tended to speak rather loudly and this, coupled with his sometimes outspoken views, could be highly embarrassing (more of this later).
In the early days, it was Ken who would phone around, fix appointments and show our work, more often than not he would land us some work. What you have to get your mind around here is that everything was arranged by phone i.e. a landline. There were no mobiles, faxes or computers then. All of our work had to be physically mocked up using colour prints, rub down transfers and hand finished. Everything took ages to do. Finished artwork was the same slog with the tedium of cutting and pasting – If anyone tells you this was a great time of craft and design integrity, shoot them. It wasn’t.
During the first six months, we slowly built up a new clientele, moving away from our staple diet of publishing…
Some of the covers I produced at Fontana Books prior to starting Carroll & Dempsey. (bottom) a series designed for my old publishing house William Heinemann.
Television was a natural home for us, and we had landed some projects from Thames Television just as they embarked on industrial action about pay...
TV blackouts during the ITV strike. This was our little studio Sony portable set in glorious black & white.
This resulted in a strike, which dragged on for 10 weeks. But Penguin Books kept the wolf from the door. David Pelham, Penguin’s then Art Director was incredibly supportive and provided us with a generous flow of work.
We designed hundreds of Penguin covers in out first five years.
Eventually, the television strike was resolved and we were back in there and now also working for Yorkshire TV. Projects started to pick up...
Just a little of the work created for Yorkshire Television in the early 80's.
and soon we added an assistant, one Peter Barwick who arrived looking like he’d just walked off the set of Brief Encounter. A charming, movie-mad eccentric who fitted in like a glove.
When we were not busy Peter would find things to do like repainting the studio or fixing cupboard doors and playing his Hank Williams albums. Things were beginning to happen.
Our canteen, just a short walk away from our studio, was a bustling restaurant called ‘La Brasserie’. We were such regulars that we had our own table, with a bottle of wine already ‘breathing’ on our arrival. There we would lunch, talk, drink and talk and drink and drink even more. How we ever managed to work after those leisurely liquid lunches I’ll never know, but somehow we did.
A little later two more assistants arrived,
Paul Jenkins installed in our first studio. A refugee from the British Gas Board.
Paul Jenkins (now of Ranch) whom we’d liberated from an in-house studio at British Gas, where he spent his time designing mindless forms whilst going slightly mad. And with him came new music to the studio in the shape of Kraftwork. Then came the neat and homely Karen Wilks. She brought an orderly calm to our little creative family and endless cups of tea. We were all very happy and beavered away at making a name for ourselves. In 1981 we received a D&AD silver award for this…
Our first D&AD silver. A rather macho looking piece now. But 30 years ago it seemed to cut the mustard.
With more work coming in, we needed more hands and a larger premises. In 1982 we moved to Regent Street and took the top floor of the building where the Apple store now is. The next five years were to be a turning point for Carroll & Dempsey.
Part 2 here.