Graphic Journey Blog

David Gentleman: Stamp of Approval

Royal Mail has issued a set of 6 stamps featuring original designs from their archive by David Gentlemen RDI. They are in celebration his outstanding contribution to the development of modern British stamp design from the 1960s to the present. In 2010 I recorded a candid interview with him about his life and work. (See link at foot) Here are four of the six.

To hear the interview click HERE

 

 

 

 

LOVED COVERS No. 22:

In 1967, I worked for a few years at an American design consultancy that had arrived from Cincinnati in the early sixties to set up in "Swinging London", as it was then known. Also, by then, I was regularly getting freelance book cover design work from several London-based publishers. So, I was feeling chipper, having just married and purchased my first house. While browsing covers in Hatchards, my go-to bookshop, just five minutes away from the consultancy, I became transfixed by the cover shown with its enlarged rail ticket and punched hole revealing the die-stamped author and title on the black binding case. Nicholas Thirkell designed it, and I knew he was working at Macmillan as their art director. I have never been backwards about approaching designers whose work I admired, so I made a b-line for Thirkell, a quinicental public school gentleman, tall, quietly spoken, modest and difficult to fathom. He became another publishing client, and just a year later, in 1968, I left the American design consultancy and became the art director of William Heinemann based in Queens Street Mayfair and later on to William Collins (Fontana). It became a wonderful decade in the publishing world. Nineteen years after that original meeting with Nicholas in the 1960s, he became a partner in my consultancy, Carroll, Dempsey & Thirkell (CDT), in 1986. He sadly died in 2022.

LOVED COVERS No.18

With a nod to Martin Creed, designer Jamie Keenan produced this brilliant cover in 2020. It shows the bravery of publishers Granta in this age of dumbing down this historic creative discipline, especially in the UK with its bullying conglomerates.

LOVED COVERS No.12

LOVED COVERS No.12: The second half of my publishing decade was in paperbacks with Fontana. I regularly commissioned Tony Meeuwissen RDI, one of the few conceptual designers/illustrators I would call an analogue genius. I treated his work with extra care when going through the approval process. All the cover designs he did for me back then remained intact without any change. This one was for Fontana (1977). Read a feature I wrote about Tony Meeuwissen in 'EYE' magazine  HERE: 

LOVED COVERS No 7

LOVED COVERS No 7: I imagined this quiet, delicate little indie cover being hemmed in by all those bullying books adorned with colour, quotes and crap, shouting, "LOOK AT ME!" Ridley's book is the touching story of his sports-reporting wife, Vikki Orvice, who died of cancer at the age of 56. The falling bail dislodged from the stumps is the perfect visual metaphor for this book of love, loss and negotiating grief through watching cricket. Published by Floodlit Dreams in 2020, it was designed by Steve Leard.

André François (1915-2005) was a much-loved French cartoonist who used no words; his work spoke for itself, and he became a much sought-after artist with commissions from magazines, publishers, and advertising agencies for his brilliance in visual storytelling. François was a good friend of Ronald Searle, another pen-wielding genius to be included here shortly in this series.

LOVED COVERS No.4

A cover you have to engage with either attempting to read backwards or holding it up to a mirror. It was designed by the very talented Jamie Keenan, a long-time exponent of cover craft, as here for Granta Books, published in 2018.

Mike Dempsey: Cover Meeting

This week’s episode is with Mike Dempsey - he’s been a practising graphic designer since 1964. From the late sixties, he worked as an Art Director for two leading British publishing houses. In 1979, he founded the design consultancy Carroll & Dempsey, which later became CDT Design Ltd. His work has earned him many awards, and in 2012, he was presented with a unique Black Pencil for the most-awarded designer in D&AD’s 50-year history. To listen, click HERE

 

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.

 

Coveting covers 31

Peter Mendelsund’s cover design for the minimalist American poet Robert Lax gives minimum information for maximum impact. What more do you need? Published by W. W. Norton & Company 2019.

Coveting covers 30

A collection of short stories of often absurd situations derived from the strange in the everyday and the everyday in the strange. Canadian designer David Gee used the title to inspire his witty cover, Published in 210 by ECW Press.