Graphic Journey Blog

LOVED COVERS No.21

I walked into my local bookshop yesterday and was struck by this book on the table amid the multitude of screaming covers surrounding it. It shone like a beacon. There's no book jacket, just tiny black typography blocked onto a cloth binding case. How can this be, I thought. It turned out Rubin hooked up with Pentagram's Paula Scher Hon RDI. He said, "Paula's gravitas as a designer helped keep the corporate representatives at bay and willing to take risks...' and went on ...' no quotes, descriptions or any other marketing material printed in the book or on the cover. You'll be hard-pressed to find another book by a mainstream publisher for a general audience with these allowances made". It has been a great success. There you go. Canongate Books 2023.

Fernando Gutiérrez: A Classic Approach

I had the great pleasure of interviewing graphic designer Fernando Gutiérrez RDI. His career began in 1986 at CDT Design in London. In 1992, he relocated to Spain and joined Sumer in Barcelona. After briefly returning to London, he formed Studio Graphica in Barcelona with fellow designer Pablo Martin. In 2000, Gutiérrez moved back to the UK as a Pentagram Partner, where he worked for six years. In 2006, he established Studio Fernando Gutiérrez.

Originally born in London in the 1960s to Spanish parents, Fernando displayed artistic talent from a young age, often drawing and painting on the walls of his room. Despite being initially directed towards a trade job with the London Electricity Board, his art teacher recognized his potential and steered him towards a different path. Gutiérrez’s unique upbringing contributes to his identity as a genuinely European designer, with a unique way of choosing projects and the clients he works with.

To listen to the interview, click HERE.

 

The cover designer's dread: "We have some notes".

Below:  Dec. 9, 2022 New York Times
NYT journalist, Matt Dorfman in the accompanying piece on 'The NYT Best Book Covers 2022' said:

" Most often, any personal stylistic expressions in their work are swallowed up in service to the multiple masters — editors, marketing directors, sales teams — who sign off on a book’s cover. There is also the matter of adhering to any one publisher’s dos and don’ts, which can inform mandates about typography, color palettes and production flourishes like embossing or metallic inks. For people employed in a theoretically creative pursuit, designers’ talents are often defined by how effortlessly they can make themselves disappear to serve the book".

Cutting to the chase Dorfman means a shedload of suggestions and interference from those in the publishing industry who think they know better than the poor designer. After that onslaught, they are left to absorb all that crap and attempt to produce something of merit. I think this group of covers demonstrates that they are fighting a losing battle. How sad things have got.

Tribal Dress

The following was originally published in 2022

At the recommendation of a friend, I watched the documentary ‘Objectified’ on Vimeo. It’s about the world of product design and the philosophy of some of the leaders in the field. With the documentary made in 2011, the array of cutting-edge products featured is already looking dated. Creating a timeless classic is an elusive thing. It made me realise that even with talk of designing for longevity and saving the planet, most of the designers existed as instruments for their clients – in exchange for their investments, the clients wanted ever newer stuff to sell. Many of the designers were quick to defend their position.

Jonathan Ive

Apple’s original Head of Design, Jonathan Ive, who had a closely shaven head and a toned body encased in a tight-fitting grey T-shirt, eulogised about the wonderful detailing of Apple products and their passion for stamping out waste during the production process. And there can be no doubt that Apple products are beautifully engineered and designed. But there was no talk about the relentless pursuit of selling new replacement versions of their iPhones, laptops and watches. We are expected to upgrade yearly, tossing away what is in itself a marvel of manufacturing technology and ingenuity. 

Dieter Rams, less

This directly contrasts with the view of German designer Dieter Rams, who believes that well-designed products should last a lifetime. This has been proven by the longevity of Rams’ 606 Vitsœ shelving system design in the 1960s, which is still in production and lasts forever. The irony is that the iPhone has made many more design decisions during its complex creation. Still, it has become a yearly throwaway fashion item with inbuilt obsolescence – a shocking indictment of 21st-century design. 

One half of the concept for a revolutionary toothbrush.

On the topic of longevity, ‘Objectified’ features a brainstorming session where a group of excitable, young, T-shirted designers, armed with Magic Markers and Post-it notes, had gathered in the London offices of design consultancy Ideo to ‘redefine the toothbrush’ – how it could be made more sustainable, how to reduce plastic waste, etc. After a morning of intense discussion, enthusiasm and a wall covered in multi-coloured messages and drawings, they came up with the earth-shattering idea of a detachable brush head.

This was followed by much CAD drawing and 3D model making and construction, which ended up with an uncomfortable marriage of a Scandinavian-style wood-stemmed spoon handle fused onto a plastic toothbrush head. It looks pretty clumsy, and I don’t recall ever seeing it on sale, so perhaps the whole thing was staged to highlight an example of ‘design thinking’ in action. It is better to have suggested bamboo toothbrushes with eco-friendly, plant-based bristles (below) – job done. 

But thank goodness there were great examples of design longevity from two masters: Dieter Rams and Naoto Fukasawa. However, my attention was diverted from what the product designers designed to what they wore. I have written about the political class and their sartorial choices, particularly the inmates of the House of Lords (link at the end), but I digress – let’s stick to the ‘design tribe’ and their dress code.

I live in Clerkenwell, an area in London with many architectural firms. Looking out of my studio window at lunchtime, I witness a steady stream of young, ethnically diverse architects, all clad in regulation black. It’s amazing and consistent across most architectural firms.

Just four of many key architects who favour black

But then again, there are always detractors. 

Richard Rogers green is the colour.

Such as Richard Rogers, with his love of apple-green, collarless shirts, and lapis lazuli slacks, or his partner Mike Davies, whose mode of dress is entirely devoted to the colour red.

Mike Davies, the man in red. 

I am assuming that it’s not just a surface thing and am imagining that he wears red Y-fronts – actually, I don’t want to imagine that. The doyen of contemporary interiors, Terence Conran, is more conservative, but he has consistently favoured Klein Blue shirts to stamp his brand colour.

Terence Conran in his signature Klein Blue shirt.

Artists originally wore smocks to protect their clothing, and many industries spawned practical and protective industrial clothing.

Henri Matisse in a fetching brown artist smock.

Commercial artists wore them in the 1940s and 50s, like Abram Games.

The US railroad workers’ dungarees and jackets and the French farmworkers’ jackets are classical, hard-wearing and practical items that found their way into the hearts of many designers, the only difference being that they wear a tighter-fitting, restyled version that costs ten times as much as you would pay in authentic hardware stores. And these 21st-century incarnations never see oil, grease or grime.

The classic US Oshkosh denim workwear jacket

The classic French farmworker jacket for a few euros.

The 21st-century French farmworkers jacket inspired fashion item at £250.

Graphic designer Chip Kidd seems to be channelling the 1950s British TV character Billy Bunter (below).

Graphic designer Ken Garland with his signature colourful embroidered rimless cap. 

Graphic designer Vim Crowell is in his futuristic outfit.

Massimo and Lella Vignelli created their own roomy outfits for themselves and the staff.

Frank Lloyd Wright favoured a cape and a low-crowned hat.

Le Corbusier's glasses resurfaced in the 1980s to become an essential fashion statement for well-known graphic designers of the period. 

The minimalist John Pawson perfectly complimenting his work (below)

Back in 1987, when I was running my old company, Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell, one of my young assistants ruined a brand new and rather expensive white shirt while using a Rotring ink pen. This was before everything was produced in the hygienic digital world. Cow Gum, paints, inks and scalpels were the norm, and the occasional bloody accident while brandishing the latter. The ink-stained white shirt made me think we should have some protection.

This photo was taken by the late Terry O'Neill (top left) for Elle magazine. It shows the shortlisted studio 'work jackets' worn by various creatives; that's me top right with hair! I'd commissioned students of the St Martin's School of Art fashion department back in 1988. The winner was Julie Philipson (bottom left), wearing her winning jacket and the one adopted by CDT Design.

I set up a little competition with the fashion students at St Martin’s. My brief to them was to create a modern-day smock or jacket suitable for a design group. The image (above) was the result, and we all wore them for several years until, one by one, they disappeared, along with the Cow Gum, inks, scalpels and parallel motion boards. But my thinking was for entirely practical reasons, and, yes, I wanted the clothes to look good, too, but they were led by function. But back to my view about designers’ dress codes. In ‘Objectified’, there was a distinct contrast between the various designers’ sartorial choices. It was interesting to see how their dress reflected their work.

A perfect example of this is designer Karim Rashid. As you can see from the picture above, it smacks of “I am a designer”, and the work smacks of “I have been designed” and is typical of Americans’ pushy hutzpah.

Contrast this with the Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, whose dress sense is very low-key and

Naoto Fukasawa is another low-key dresser.

Fukasawa's rice bowl. Sublime simplicity.

Directly relates to the simplicity of his design for Muji, along with the modesty of most Japanese people – unless you happen to be under 18, where anything goes. I feel a little guilty about not talking more about the work of the product designers in the documentary. Still, most of it was very familiar to me, but not so much the designers themselves, so I viewed it through a different lens, and it became far more interesting to look beyond their work. 

Anish Kapoor and Ai Weiwei keep things neutral.

Back in the ’80s and ’90s, as a company, Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell donated some of its profits to the arts: we sponsored the shows of Anish Kapoor Tate and a Cindy Sherman show at the Whitechapel. At the private viewings, we mixed with sponsors, artists, gallery owners, friends and curators, and you could divide these by their dress codes. At each private view, the curators were kitted out in Issey Miyake or Dolce & Gabbana. The artists were very unobtrusive. The gallery owners would be in soberly cut, well-tailored suits with a flash of colour in the sock department or a choice Georgina von Etzdorf tie or scarf loosely worn around their necks to show that they were a little edgier than their city broker friends. But things changed when Grayson Perry appeared on the scene.

Grayson Perry and an example of his ceramic work are below.

I have been in the design world since the early ’60s and have seen and been through many fashion iterations. Looking back at photographs, most of these trends reflected the times, but, viewed now, they are highly embarrassing. I always find it amusing and a little sad when you see major, and not so major, rock stars and groups from the ’70s permanently stuck in a fashion time warp.

The Rolling Stones are in a fashion time warp.

Elton John

Boy George

Adam Ant inspired the doyens of haute couture.

The ever-changing David Bowie.

The Rolling Stones, with their spiky mullets and bandanas, along with their ageing frames squeezed into leather trousers and cowboy boots, resemble a geriatric coach party heading to a ’70s-themed event. Only David Bowie seemed to cleverly surf over that fashion trap by constantly evolving.

But fashion is just another industry driven by the big retailers, like Philip Green, who spews out affordable fashion items made in chicken-coup-style factories in the Far East to maximise profits, pay himself enormous sums and bank the rest in low-tax countries. And on the topic of the fashion industry, there can be no doubt that it is the place for the most excessive use of visual self-expression, especially in the lofty world of haute couture fashion. Surrounded by adoring customers and A-listers from all quarters, fashion designers celebrate their new seasons of wares with adulation and camera flashes. 

Douglas Fairbanks seems to be the source of both the pop and fashion world look.

John 'Look at me' Galliano.

Two that stand out for me are John Galliano, with his swashbuckling Douglas Fairbanks look singling him out as ‘the designer’ (just in case), and Karl Lagerfeld, with his stiff shirt collars like a neck brace, white makeup, sunglasses and Michael Jackson black leather gloves, along with a ponytail.

Black-clad Karl Lagerfeld was convinced that he was 'the only one'.

 And some women from the fashion world, Zandra Rhodes and Betty Jackson. The former wants to inhabit every colour in the rainbow, and the latter sticks to black and white.

Rainbow Zandra Rhodes

Betty Jackson stays classic.

Alexander McQueen left his creations to speak for him.

The likes of Galliano and Largerfield are in direct contrast to Alexander McQueen, who mostly favoured a T-shirt and let his work be the visual event.  I have been around long enough to have seen fashions come around and go around several times over and look ridiculous. These days, I view extreme fashion shifts with gentle amusement.

Some more of my fashion observations can be found in the following links:

Send in the clowns

Dedicated followers of fashion

Jelly mould politics

RDInsights: In conversation

Listen to them all HERE

A sense of place: Morag Myerscough

The Movement Cafe, 25 years in the making.

The Royal Designer and artist Morag Myerscough's convoluted, 25-year journey to the creation of her now well known tempory structures is a fascinating one. I recorded this RDInsights interview with her just before Christmas.
Listen to it here:

Sir Christopher Frayling: In conversation

To hear the interview click HERE

Design and conscience.

Above a student sleep-in at Hornsey College of Art in 1968. 

 Buckminster Fuller gives a lecture during a sit-in at Hornsey College of Art in 1968.

Back in the 1960s, British student activism came to the fore. The Vietnam War, racism and more-local frustrations (like student fees and representation) rose above the parapet. There were sit-ins, sleep-ins, lock-ins and all manner of demonstrations throughout the ’60s. One far quieter protest came in 1964 from a group of graphic designers, photographers and students, headed by Ken Garland. They put their names to a manifesto entitled ‘First Things First’. It rallied against the consumerist culture. They were frankly appalled by many of their industry colleagues chasing and pandering to the commercial pound. This group of manifesto-waving comrades were more about using their creative skills to better society, rather than damage it. Here is that original manifesto:

In 2000, 36 years on from ‘First Things First’, the cause was taken up again by the Canadian magazine Adbusters; after spotting an article in Eye magazine, they decided to reprint the ‘First Things First’ manifesto. This culminated in the manifesto being updated for the 21st century and another group, once again wanting the creative community to adhere to similar principles, got out their pens and signed it.

They were Jonathan Barnbrook, Nick Bell, Andrew Blauvelt, Hans Bockting, Irma Boom, Sheila Levrant de Bretteville, Max Bruinsma, Siân Cook, Linda van Deursen, Chris Dixon, William Drenttel, Gert Dumbar, Simon Esterson, Vince Frost, Ken Garland, Milton Glaser, Jessica Helfand, Steven Heller, Andrew Howard, Tibor Kalman Jeffery Keedy, Zuzana Licko, Ellen Lupton, Katherine McCoy, Armand Mevis, J. Abbott Miller, Rick Poynor, Lucienne Roberts, Erik Spiekermann, Jan van Toorn, Teal Triggs, Rudy VanderLans and Bob Wilkinson. It was then co-published by Adbusters, Emigre and the AIGA Journal in North America and by Eye and Blueprint in Britain, with further connections in the Netherlands and Form in Germany.

Now we are 17 years into the 21st century and it is clear that many of the concerns of that little 1964 band of brothers (and sisters) have been proved right in their fears of the state of Britain. We are an obese, hyperactive, commercially obsessed society. The digital age has disrupted virtually every area of our daily lives. The design community has mushroomed out of all proportion to the extent that for every designer with a moral compass in harmony with ‘First Things First’ and with the desire to benefit society, there are far more who are happy and hungry enough to use their skills to help to peddle useless crap by designing packaging to encourage children to eat and drink products overfilled with sugar, salt and fat, helping to make Britain and increasingly obese and unhealthy society. Ironically, many of the design presentations of this never-ending parade of products are featured on the Design Week website, often as exemplars of creativity, without one word of criticism.

More sinisterly, every Internet search we make is being tracked and the information sold to advertisers, which in turn will relentlessly target us to buy, buy, buy. This was far from the imaginings of Ken Garland and Co. back in 1964. It would have seemed like an unbelievable world of horrific science fiction.

I’ve often wondered how many of those original (sadly, some no longer with us) 1964 signatories, and the later 2000 group, have adhered to the promise they all signed up to, steering well clear of promoting commercial ‘striped toothpaste’, cat food, stomach powders, etc., along with all those other areas the manifesto so bitterly despised. It would seem that of all of them, Ken Garland clearly has.

If you have any views on this do drop me a comment.

Further reading on ‘First Things First’ 

The original Eye magazine story here

And the 2000 update here

Working in the ever present past

Over the past 15 years, China has built hundreds of new cities. 

Here in the UK, it takes us four years to repair a clock tower. I’m talking about Elizabeth Tower, which houses Big Ben. It will cost £40 million, which includes a ‘full refurbishment’ with the addition of a new visitor centre at the bottom of the tower and installing a lift to the top. 

In addition to this £40 million, there is the planned renovation of the Houses of Parliament at a staggering estimated cost of £3.5 billion. As a Grade 1 listed building, you can bet your bottom dollar that figure will double as new things are ‘discovered’ during the renovation, meaning yet more renovation. The Houses of Parliament is a grossly outmoded building for modern politics. 

The moment a new politician walks into that Victorian, Potteresque, gothic fantasy, with its 100 staircases, more than 1,000 rooms and three miles of passages, something hits them – a massive sense of self-importance, privilege and ultimately a self-serving sense of right. Perfect for Jacob Rees-Mogg and his like, or the bewigged judges and the hereditary lords hanging out in the many heavily subsidised eateries and bars, all delighted to be embraced by the 19th-century backdrop, cosseted from the nasty realities of the outside world.

But we live in the 21st century and our politicians should reflect that, and they just don’t in this archaic building. And to shell out the enormous amount of money bandied about for the renovation is obscene when so much money is desperately needed in far more important areas. 

An average attendance in the House of Commons...

unlesss they happen to be discussing something really important, like their expenses and pay.

Far, far better to create a modern, environmentally sustainable parliamentary building fit for the 21st century, dispensing with the stockinged waiters, wigs and gowns and all the other antiquated trappings. Perhaps then many of the 800 peers would drop out of using the place as “the best club in London” as one peer said to me when I visited with him a few years ago, with many of them collecting their £300 per day for snoozing on the benches after eating subsidised booze and food.

Collecting £300 per day for a Lord is exhausting..

The Lords member's dining room.

And the Commons dining room.

Above a typical menu

Free taxies home for MPs after !!p.m. No smelly tube for them.

And while on politicians expenses here is Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt's new bathroom...

 

A snip at £44,000 for the taxpayer installed exclusively for Hunt's own personal use in his London penthouse office. I'm sure all those 1% pay rise nurses will be pleased for him. This is what I mean by self-serving. 

The parliamentary buildings sitting in such a fabulous location should become the most wonderful complex for the people, with money raised from both public and private sources.

An example of a 21st-century (aka 19th-century) occupant is Sir Robert Rogers (above), who when he retired recently as clerk of the commons was applauded by the house, which he described as “really, really moving”. But Conservative MP Jacob Rees-Mogg said: “I think applause is a bit modern for the House of Commons.” See what I mean. And here is Mr Rees-Mogg in his home setting...

Jacob Rees-Mogg's home blends perfectly with his work environment. 

And then there is the Buckingham Palace ‘emergency’ refurbishment, costing the taxpayer £369m. Don’t get me started on that.

The scandal of Handel

 

In March 2014, I told a cautionary tale about how the Handel House Museum tried to get me to produce creative work for free. That request followed a credentials presentation and a detailed quotation, after which I was shortlisted down to the final four designers for interview by the board of trustees. I was then told by the museum’s director that a member of the selection committee wanted to see some creative solutions before making a decision. To add insult to injury, I was informed that there would be no fee for this stage. I told them what to do in no uncertain terms and withdrew and decided to whistle blow because I was so outraged that one creative community was openly prepared to screw another. 

Eighteen months on and that project has now come to fruition as the Handel & Hendrix in London. At the time, along with me, another of the designers withdrew for the same reason, leaving just two. I was informed that all of the original four had been told to produce speculative work for the board to consider before making their choice. 

I have no idea if the final design group actually did produce some speculative work; it would be good to know that they didn’t. Perhaps someone out there knows?

The reason I am making such a song and dance about this is because I know that few would bring this sort of thing out in the open for fear of losing work or being sidelined as difficult. But the fact is, if we don’t stand up for the value of our work and stamp free pitching out, we will be continually walked over by the likes of Handel House Museum. Shame on them for not having the integrity to treat designers with respect, and shame on their chairman for denying on Design Week’s website that it ever happened. It did and I wisely kept all the correspondence to prove it.

A little film for all designers with a very big bite.

And in one of those serendipitous events, a wonderful video turned up this week on the very topic of free pitching that is a must for every designer to watch and learn from. Take a look here.