Graphic Journey Blog

Intelligent design

Marion Duchards: Playtime

This is the designer, illustrator and author Marion Deuchars RDI. She is known around the world for her creative activity books for young and old alike. They are full of colour and ideas to help awaken and promote the inner creativity locked away in everyone.

Her mantra is,

"everyone should lead a creative life".

I had the pleasure of interviewing Marion last month in my long-running podcast series, RDInsights. In this 52nd episode, Marion talks about her Scottish childhood and early creative blossoming that propelled her through art school and to eventually land her a place at the Royal College of Art in London and onto the illustration landscape. To hear her story click HERE.

Tom Gauld: Things happening

The cover of Tom's first children's book to be published in 2021.

Tom Gauld RDI has been amusing us with his gentle view of the world for two decades. I had the pleasure of interviewing him recently for my podcast series, RDInsights. Hear about Tom's early life and his creative journey to the present day. Perfect to listen to on a lockdown exercise walk. Just click the tab below.

 

Tom Gauld RDI Nov 2020 with Mike Dempsey RDI

 

Washing powder graphics

Silhouetted figures and the colour red = poverty of thought. Now on display at your local Waterstones.

Isidro Ferrer: Spanish delight

This is Isidro Ferrer. Graphic Designer, Illustrator, sculptor, humorist, and general all-round creative wizard. I love his work. Here is just a tiny fraction of his output centring on his poster series for Centro Dramatico Nacional dating back from 2006. They are a beautiful example of pure graphic, conceptual thinking, executed in two colour line and much copied by others. They have the same simplicity as the work by the late great Pierre Medell for Bayerische Opera Staatsoper. Enjoy...

Then he switched to full colour...

To see some of Pierre Medell's work click HERE

 

Covering covers for 2019

With Covid19 interrupting the publishing industry, bookshops and the many freelance designers employed, it will be interesting to see what transpires during the remainder of 2020.

I'm sure for some, my being prevented from making regular trips to Waterstones, to record some of their table book displays, has been a relief. In my selection for this post, I had two no-nos. 1. No faux 1940s/50s retro designs. 2. No jackets with redacted type. Both have become lazy designer cliches.

All of the designs I have featured demonstrate that there are still designers who can rise above the bland sameness so often spewed out by many publishing marketing departments. Let's hope that those publishing houses can be more adventurous.

Anyway, in no particular order, here is my selection of the best jackets from the 2019 crop.

Designed by Grace Han

Designed by Rodrigo Corral

Designed by Alex Merto

Designed by Jean Wong

Designed by Linda Huang

Designed by Na Kim

Designed by Jamie Keenan

Designed by Jack Smyth

Designed by Alex Merto

Designed by Michael Oswell

Designed by Sarahmay Wilkinson

Tyler Comrie

Oliver Munday

Paul Sahre

Matt Derfman

Lauren Peters-Collaer

David Gentleman: My Town

David Gentleman RDI. Photo by © Antonio Olmos

David Gentleman has long been a hero of mine ever since the nursery slopes of my design career. His all-round ability as illustrator, designer, engraver and writer is breathtaking. For me on discovering his work back in the 1960s, he appeared a rather aloof character being distanced from hubbub and hype of design associations like the Chartered Society of designers or D&AD. He seemed to hover above those competitive worlds.  But I noted that he had the letters RDI after his name, I had no idea what that was.

Little did I know that many years later I would finally meet David on the occasion of my becoming an RDI (Royal Designer for Industry). Since that time I have had the pleasure of knowing him, written about and recorded an interview with him (Link below). My early imaginings of his aloofness were completely unfounded. If anything he has that English shyness and modestly that resists the notion of being praised, in a wold of hubris it is a rarity these days. But for me, his work speaks loud and proud, he doesn't need to say a thing.

The jacket and binding case (below).

Last week saw the publication of his new book My Town: An Artists Life in London. It features the everyday goings-on in a town he has lived in and loved all his life. Captured with his beautiful black ink pen line overlayed with the most watery of watercolour it captures the seven decades of his 90 years on this planet. His 90th birthday coincided with the publication of the book. It's a delight.

Hear my interview with David Gentleman RDI HERE

Season's Greetings!

Greta Gerwig: Christmas cracker

Following on from her Oscar-nominated Lady Bird, Greta Gerwig has adapted and directed Louisa May Alcott’s classic American novel Little Women. 

The production is on an entirely different scale to Gerwig’s early films. This has a huge cast of characters, headed by Saoirse Ronan, Emma Watson, Florence Pugh, Eliza Scanlen, Laura Dern, Timothée Chalamet and Meryl Streep, backed up with hundreds of extras and a vast crew. But Gerwig has grasped it with a steady hand and delivered a faithful rendition, with a few minor dramatic changes, of this much-loved story based on the impossible, goody-goody, close-knit, loving family of four daughters (Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy) and their matriarchal, socially conscious mother, Marmee (Laura Dern). All kitted out in wonderful costumes by Jacqueline Durran. The family’s father is off involved with the civil war for 95% of the film. I’m sure you all know the story.

For the main protagonist, Jo March, Gerwig has turned again to her Lady Bird star Saoirse Ronan to play an almost identically argumentative main character: the feisty, emancipated, pushy, would-be writer Jo March, but transported back to the 19th century. Rather than running the tale in a conventional linear form, Gerwig effortlessly inserts flashbacks and forwards to great effect. It is sumptuously shot by Yorick le Saux on 35 mm in glorious Massachusetts through the seasons, all lovingly captured.

It reminded me of Orson Welles’ The Magnificent Ambersons (1942), also set in the 19th century, with its frantic tracking shots and overlapping dialogue – all used by Gerwig in this film.

At times Little Women, it’s like flicking through a Montgomery Ward & Co mail-order catalogue; at other times, it’s like looking at the most beautiful Victorian Christmas card.

It is a charming film, and its release date of 25th December will make it the Christmas movie.

Then & Now

An occasional series linking past design thinking with the present, without comment.

Past

1978

Present

2019

 

Then & Now

An occasional series linking past design thinking with the present, without comment.

Past

1979

Present

2019