Graphic Journey Blog

RDInsights: In conversation

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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

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:

Ronald Lampitt 1906 – 1988 / Rural Idle

There is something magical about the way illustration can conjure up a feeling that often photographs can’t. Ronald Lampitt was such an illustrator. Little has been written about him, but his work has touched many people. If you were brought up on Ladybird books then you would have seen it. He pursued his craft for five decades creating a highly romanticised view of post war rural Britain, on railway posters, books and magazine covers, where local shops and communities were cherished and the customs and character of our countryside were fiercely preserved.

This is a book that means a lot to me…

The Odhams Encyclopaedia for Children was given to me in the 50’s and I still have it. I would spend hours ogling the many different styles of illustration. The book inspired me to pursue a life in the creative world; simply through looking at the illustrations, I don’t think I read any part of it. Ronald Lampitt was one of the 30 illustrators involved in the creation of the book. He, like the others, was a humble ‘commercial illustrator’, as they were then called.

I came across these 1950’s John Bull magazines with covers illustrated by Lampitt. They exemplify his Betjemanesque vision of an England with its bicycles, bobbies, friendly postmen, the smell of Sunday roast, newly mown lawns and the distant sound of leather on willow on a lazy summer’s day. 

He captured all that perfectly and beautifully. And his covers for John Bull throughout the 50s helped cheer up the still rationed burdened families that made up post war Britain. His springs were budding with the zest of new life. His summers were leisurely, lazy and hot, crunchy autumnal days were filled with the scent of burning leaves, and his winters were always topped off with a blanket of crisp snow.  

This vision of a bygone era is something that many still have nostalgia for, and is exemplified by the many pseudo village style estates popping up around Britain.

When not in London I live in Dorset. Ten miles north of me is the new estate of Poundbury, the brainchild of non other than HRH Prince Charles. While on a visit to the US in the 80s he had seen the retro timber clad, apple pie oceanside town of Seaside in Florida…

 So taken by the folksy charm of Seaside, created by US architects Duany and Plater-Zyberkhe, among others, HRH ear-marked a site in Dorset where he planed to build his vision of a rural utopia. 

In 1988 he appointed Leon Krier the neo-traditional architect and planner. This is what he came up with…

 I have a problem with this kind of building style, it is little more than a theme park. However some alternatives seem to be far worse, e.g. this kind of ‘Brookside’ soulless red brick desert…

Cheap, unimaginative design seems to be the alternative.  Why do we find it so difficult to embrace modern domestic architecture in this country? Why is it that planning departments in most local authorities actively support pastiches of the past and condemn any advancement in domestic architectural design? Go to Holland and see how they tackle the issue.

But from what I have discovered, Poundbury is a huge success. As I write it is tripling in size. Houses sell the moment they become available. But strangely, when you visit, there is a complete absence of people interacting in a ‘normal' village-life way, unlike the classic organic village populated by generations of families creating the real backbone of village life. Poundbury may look the business with its thatch, stonework, porticos and a random juxtaposition and size realationship, but at its heart, it is not. The same concept could have been used featuring a really  exciting range of modern archetecture. Now that would have been something. But who knows perhaps in a hundred years or more Poundebury might be viewed differently.

If you’d like to know more about Ronald Lampitt’s work and life, or see the work of other illustrators of the 50s and 60s, go across to Steve Holland's very informative site here.