davidthedesigner

guest post #1 : accideNTs

You'll remember that I'm not here at the moment, so in my absence I've asked a couple of people if they would like to make a guest post (plus I've also had a couple of offers). So here's the first: from Barnsley Boy Ian (and it might help, if you're new here, to read some earlier posts - start with this one - about who really did design the National Theatre logo).

So, take it away Ian:

AccideNTs

1963 The National Theatre opens at the Old Vic with Hamlet. Programme designed by Ken Briggs in revolutionary (for UK) modernist style. A 13 year-old Barnsley Boy copies Flintstones cartoons and reads Battle Picture Library comics.

19?? FHK Henrion designs Tate & Lyle stencil logo

1968 Ken Briggs designs Volpone programme, Barnsley Boy is trying to decide between languages and art for his future. Barnsley Grammar school arrange a trip to the National Theatre as it is a set book for A-levels. The programme travels back to Barnsley complete with its fantastic papers, duotones, wonderful photographs. Graphic design looks fun.

1969 After various mishaps with snow-bound portfolio, Reading University offers BB a place to study typography in newly created unit within the fine art department. Perhaps partly because Terry Frost (famous St Ives artist and father of comedy improv star Stephen Frost) thought BB had spinner's fingers and could play for Fine Art cricket team. (BB played football).

1972 BB meets Ken Briggs’ former partner Ian McClaren on educational visit to Munich Olympics design studio. BB dreams of working for Pentagram.

Summer 1973 BB applies for and gets a job with Moura-George Briggs, a new London design studio hoping to emulate Pentagram's total-design success. Its main clients and financiers are a 'fringe' bank called Cedar Holdings. BB works on a few jobs for the National Theatre, including the beginnings of a sign-system for the as-yet-unfinished new building on South Bank. BB turns down a job offer from FHK Henrion.

December 1973 The Bank of England closes down Cedar Holdings for 'crimes' like offering incentives to customers who opened accounts with them. Its chairman is humiliated and broken by being left in a cold dark basement at the Bank of England (it was a time of 3-day working weeks and powercuts). Its managing director later kills himself. BB comes in to work to find a cloud of cigarette and cigar smoke - evidence of an early morning crisis meeting. BB is made redundant on the same day he and his wife and daughter move into a new flat. BB asks Henrion if job is still open. It is.

1974 NT symbol is designed - see earlier posts, and goes into limbo as the theatre's opening is dogged by delays.

1976 NT opens and the Sunday Times Magazine has a front cover featuring Peter Hall and Co in front of a huge white NT on a red back door. It's not been scrapped!

1977 Richard Bird and Michael Mayhew design programme and poster for Volpone, with NT logo. BB goes to see show and buys a programme.

2004 Michael Mayhew begins a homage to Ken Briggs by returning the NT style to angled sans-serif typography.

2007 BB plays cricket for first time in 30+ years. At comedy improv stars charity game.

22 Sep 2007 BB drives along back of theatre and takes photo of back door. Full circle. In purple.

AccideNTs will happen. Or at least they did once upon a time.

i'll be back on john peel day

11 October (around midnight, appropriately enough).

we're doin' it for bob marley

"...even the people who can't dance wanna feel like dancing, that's where groove comes in." Steve Telehus

That's what I call groove.

who came, who went, who stayed

The whole shebang.

all quiet on the eastern front

So it will go a little quiet here over the next couple of weeks or so (unless, or until, all those guest bloggers come galloping to my rescue). I'm not disappearing altogether, and I will pop up now and again to make sure you're all behaving and not doing naughty things like hyphenating ranged-left text. But sometimes R&R has to come first.

So, in my absence, here's some music for you to enjoy - this from another hero (the only man - as far as I know - who's been sued by his own record company for making music they didn't like).

fancy a guest post anyone?

I'll soon be off to Gent for a couple of weeks or so - for a little bit of work, rest and play. I'll be just over the canal from here (a pity that it'll be closed, though I won't let that spoil my fun). Things may go quiet for a while, but I'm sure I'll let you know if I see anything that's really interesting.

I've asked a couple of people if they'd like to 'guest post' for me while I'm away - although I don't want the invitation to be totally exclusive. So, why don't you think about letting me have a 'guest post' of your own? The only proviso is that it needs to be somehow related to design. Other than that, the world's your oyster.

Just leave a message in the comments (below) and I'll tell you how to go about it.

(Go on, it's the chance to try blogging without the pressure of having to keep it up every day, as it were.)

more old friends: bob and horace

Cobra Beer Alex suggests that I ought to track down some more old friends, but in fact I've found that this blog actually attracts old friends to me. So let me next introduce you to Bob and Horace.

Bob, Horace and I (along with a few others) spent some happy days designing together in Covent Garden, but that was way back (though not as way back as Ian, Peter, Henrion and I). These days Bob and Horace spend their days locking up chases. And they'll be giving a talk for Letter Exchange at the Art Workers Guild, 6 Queen Square, London WC1, on 17 October 2007 at 6.30pm (telephone: 020 7278 3009 for full details).

Bob emailed me out of the blue a little while ago - and we're planning to meet up again (we haven't managed that yet, but we will). I was anxious to point out that I was not quite the svelte young man that they'd remember, but she reassured me that she now has a beard and that Horace has three children (but she's still svelte).

which way do you like it - curved or straight?

Ian's emailed me with an update on that last post: "here is an example of the original redrawn NT logo with Richard Bird and Ken Briggs’ addition of Rockwell lettering based on the NT sign system of the time. Note the curved lines and round corners which have been lost in later versions. And the knackering caused by crummy 1970s repro and printing."

And here (again) is the later 'official' version.

so, maybe peter did the artwork?

If you don't read the comments on this blog (they're listed over on the right), you might have missed the very interesting responses from Ian which follow on from my little quiz last week about the British Leyland logo that I spotted at the Beaulieu International Autojumble.

Now, I haven't seen Ian for 30 years (maybe even a few more), so imagine my surprise when I get an email alert that he's posted a comment on the blog. Anyway, Ian confirms that he's alive and kicking and running Indent Design in Reading. And he thinks he did the artwork for the logo, but he's not sure - maybe Peter did it? Peter, are you out there as well?

Well, I'm pretty certain that it was Ian. I don't think I did very much work on that project, so it's unlikely to have been me. But interesting that neither of us can quite remember. So maybe Peter did it after all.

What we both remember quite clearly, though, is how the National Theatre logo came about - something I first posted about last year (sorry it's one of those where Typepad have lost my images). Ian explains:

"Henrion actually (as I recall it) had to go to a conference and hadn't come up with a design with the deadline looming, so he said we could have a go. I did a first rough idea over the weekend and when he returned he said it needed more work, which involved refining the letterforms. He then produced a more angular union jack based design himself. He pitched the ideas (he told me) saying mine could be National Truck (If you knew him you'd be able to hear him saying this), and was a bit nonplussed when he had to tell me my idea won. But it gave him some satisfaction to have beaten Pentagram (who had rejected him as a partner). Still I can't hate the guy. He's given me lots of good stories to tell based on the short time I knew him, and I did get £50 bonus for the design. I actually redrew it at home (didn't like the way it reproduced, so made all the lines slightly curved) and got a friend at the National Theatre (Richard Bird - a great designer who died of AIDS) to substitute the artwork, but as time went by it got recreated with straight lines again. PS The other competitor company was Banks & Miles. The sculptor Eduardo Paolozzi dropped out."

"PPS: Just remembered. Henrion's first idea was a very triangular version of a stencil/union jack design. But I think he then did an N/T/face with eye, torn paper kind of thing, which is what he pitched."

But Ian must have gone to some pre-presentation meeting, since I have a very clear recollection of him describing the Pentagram proposal (the one he thought would win) to Peter and I. It was apparently a very clever negative/positive silhouette based on the tragedy/comedy masks (I bet it was done by Alan Fletcher). It would be interesting to know if anyone at Pentagram might be able to dig it out from their archives.

And, finally, if you're wondering how and why Ian's posting comments on my blog after 30 years, Ian explains that he was doing a Google search for 'Ian Dennis' to see if two pictures he submitted to the Cloud Appreciation Society a few years back were still on the site. And next to them was the NT symbol, so he clicked on it and ended up here. (So, warm greetings to anyone else who's arrived here when they were really looking for clouds. You know what they say, every one has a silver lining!).

stories behind signatures

I don't very often write about my day job on this blog - it's a sort of unwritten rule. But what are rules for, if not to be broken?

I've just finished work on the first monograph of woven textile artist, Rezia Wahid. The book's at the printers at the moment, but this is how the cover will look:

One of the photographs I'd seen in preparing for the book was of Rezia's sketch book:

I wanted to try and capture, in print, some of that ethereal quality that is so typical of Rezia's work. So I thought I'd pick up the idea (from the sketchbook) of simply using her signature as a title.

So I explained this to Rezia and asked if she could send me a copy of her signature for scanning, and she replied "I am sooo excited about the signature idea."

"I must share the story behind this signature with you!
My father has a beautiful and elegant signature with his initial A and Wahid...
I remember during my early teens my father tried his utmost to have me sign like a lady with an elegant signature but I couldn't and perhaps wouldn't. I just had to write my full name in the way I just naturally happen to develop.... so here it is - my signature - to this day my sister, who is a financial advisor, keeps a watch whenever I sign important documents - as it tends to always go beyond the space allocated for signatures! I cannot wait to tell them your suggestion."

That's a really lovely story. And, in fact, I have a similar tale to tell.

My own signature (although not nearly as elegant as Rezia's) is in all capitals, which is somewhat unusual. It came about when I was at art school. You see, I was taught handwriting in the old-fashioned way (steel-nibbed pen and a bottle of ink) when I first started school. But I'm left handed, so I always made a terrible mess - and was always bottom of the hand-writing class. But over my school years I developed a very awkward way of writing conventionally, but in a way that my hand didn't smudge what I'd just written - all very difficult. But when I got to art school I realised that I no longer had to do what I was told to do, and that I had the power to determine how I wrote. And so that's what I did - and over six months or so, I totally reinvented my hand writing (together with my signature).

I do remember that the bank wasn't very happy though.