Alan Fletcher (graphic designer)
Encyclopedia
Alan Gerard Fletcher was a British
graphic designer
. In his obituary, he was described by The Daily Telegraph
as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific".
, where his father was a civil servant. He returned to England aged 5 with the rest of his family, when his father was terminally ill. He lived with his grandparents in Shepherd's Bush
in West London
, before being evacuated in 1939 to Christ's Hospital
in Horsham
.
He studied at the Hammersmith School of Art from 1949, then at the Central School of Art, where he studied under Anthony Froshaug
and befriended Colin Forbes
, Theo Crosby
, Derek Birdsall
and Ken Garland
. After a year teaching English
in Barcelona
, he returned to London to study at the Royal College of Art
from 1953 to 1956, where he met Peter Blake
, Joe Tilson, Len Deighton
, Denis Bailey, David Gentleman
and Dick Smith
.
He married Paola Biagi, an Italian national, in 1956 (they met with a heated discussion about if orange and pink were a good or bad colour pair). He then took up a scholarship to study at the School of Architecture and Design at Yale University
, under Alvin Eisenman
, Norman Ives, Herbert Matter
, Bradbury Thompson
, Josef Albers
and Paul Rand
. He visited Robert Brownjohn
, Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar
in New York
, became friends with Bob Gill
, and was commissioned by Leo Lionni
to design a cover for Fortune magazine in 1958. After a visit to Venezuela
, he returned to London in 1959, having worked briefly for Saul Bass
in Los Angeles
and Pirelli
in Milan
.
He founded the design firm Fletcher/Forbes/Gill with Colin Forbes and Bob Gill in 1962. An early product was their 1963 book Graphic Design: A Visual Comparison.
Clients included Pirelli
, Cunard
, Penguin Books
and Olivetti
. Gill left the partnership in 1965 and was replaced by Theo Crosby, so the firm became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. Two new partners joined, and the partnership evolved into Pentagram
in 1972, with Forbes, Crosby, Kenneth Grange
and Mervyn Kurlansky, with clients including Lloyd's of London
and Daimler Benz.
Much of his work is still in use: a logo for Reuters
made up of 84 dots, which he created in 1965, was retired in 1992, but his 1989 "V&A" logo for Victoria and Albert Museum
, and his "IoD" logo for the Institute of Directors
remain in use.
In last years he designed the logo for the Italian School of Architecture "Facolta` di Architettura di Alghero", (University of Sassari
).
He left Pentagram in 1992, and worked from the home in Notting Hill
that he had occupied since the early 1960s, where he was assisted by his daughter Raffaella Fletcher, Leah Klein and Sarah Copplestone, and worked for new clients, such as Novartis
. Much of his later work was as art director for the publisher Phaidon Press
, which he joined in 1993. For him, life and work were inseparable: "Design is not a thing you do. It's a way of life." (quoted in his obituary in The Times
). He would continue working, even on holiday, drawing on a notepad with a pencil.
A book of his designs, Beware Wet Paint, was published by Jeremy Myerson in 1994. Fletcher also wrote several books about graphic design
and visual thinking, most notably The Art of Looking Sideways (2001), which had taken him 18 years to finish.
An exhibition of his life's work was displayed at the Design Museum
in London between 11 November 2006 until 18 February 2007, alongside the posthumous publication of a book, Picturing and Poeting. The exhibition went on tour in 2008. It was installed at the Ginza
Graphic Gallery in Tokyo
between the 9th and 31st of May 2008, and was installed at the Pitzhanger Manor
Gallery in Ealing
, West London
, between 14 November 2008 and 3 January 2009.
He won the Prince Philip Prize for Designer of the Year, was President of the Designers and Art Directors Association in 1973 and International President of the Alliance Graphique Internationale
from 1982 to 1985. He was elected to the Hall of Fame of the New York Art Directors Club in 1994, was a senior fellow of the Royal College of Art
in 1989 and became an honorary fellow of the London Institute in 2000.
The December 2006 limited-edition cover of Wallpaper* magazine featured one of his last works omitting his calligraphic signature in the compliments slip accompanying his completed work for he was too frail by then.
He died of cancer
in London
, and is survived by his wife and daughter.
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
graphic designer
Graphic designer
A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...
. In his obituary, he was described by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific".
Early life
Fletcher was born in, KenyaKenya
Kenya , officially known as the Republic of Kenya, is a country in East Africa that lies on the equator, with the Indian Ocean to its south-east...
, where his father was a civil servant. He returned to England aged 5 with the rest of his family, when his father was terminally ill. He lived with his grandparents in Shepherd's Bush
Shepherd's Bush
-Commerce:Commercial activity in Shepherd's Bush is now focused on the Westfield shopping centre next to Shepherd's Bush Central line station and on the many small shops which run along the northern side of the Green....
in West London
West (London sub region)
The West is a sub-region of the London Plan corresponding to the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow. The sub region was established in 2004 and was adjusted in 2008 to include Kensington and Chelsea. The west has a population of 1.6 million and...
, before being evacuated in 1939 to Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital
Christ's Hospital is an English coeducational independent day and boarding school with Royal Charter located in the Sussex countryside just south of Horsham in Horsham District, West Sussex, England...
in Horsham
Horsham
Horsham is a market town with a population of 55,657 on the upper reaches of the River Arun in the centre of the Weald, West Sussex, in the historic County of Sussex, England. The town is south south-west of London, north-west of Brighton and north-east of the county town of Chichester...
.
He studied at the Hammersmith School of Art from 1949, then at the Central School of Art, where he studied under Anthony Froshaug
Anthony Froshaug
Anthony Froshaug was an English typographer and teacher, born in London to a Norwegian father and English mother.Froshaug attended Charterhouse School and studied book production and wood engraving at the Central School of Arts & Crafts from 1937 to 1939.On leaving the Central in 1939 he began to...
and befriended Colin Forbes
Colin Forbes (graphic designer)
Colin Forbes is a British graphic designer. He is notable as a former head of the graphic design program at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts and as one of the founders of the Pentagram design studio....
, Theo Crosby
Theo Crosby
Theo Crosby was an architect, editor, writer and sculptor, engaged with major developments in design across four decades. He was also an early vocal critic of modern urbanism. He is best remembered as a founding partner of the international design partnership Pentagram, and as architect for the...
, Derek Birdsall
Derek Birdsall
-Early life:Birdsall was born in Wakefield, Yorkshire in 1934 and attended The King's School, Pontefract, Wakefield College of Art and Central School of Arts and Crafts in London...
and Ken Garland
Ken Garland
Ken Garland is notable as a British graphic designer, author and game designer. Garland established Ken Garland Associates in 1962.Garland studied design at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts in the early 1950s...
. After a year teaching English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
in Barcelona
Barcelona
Barcelona is the second largest city in Spain after Madrid, and the capital of Catalonia, with a population of 1,621,537 within its administrative limits on a land area of...
, he returned to London to study at the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
from 1953 to 1956, where he met Peter Blake
Peter Blake (artist)
Sir Peter Thomas Blake, KBE, CBE, RDI, RA is an English pop artist, best known for his design of the sleeve for the Beatles' album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. He lives in Chiswick, London, UK.-Career:...
, Joe Tilson, Len Deighton
Len Deighton
Leonard Cyril Deighton is a British military historian, cookery writer, and novelist. He is perhaps most famous for his spy novel The IPCRESS File, which was made into a film starring Michael Caine....
, Denis Bailey, David Gentleman
David Gentleman
David Gentleman is an English artist-designer. He studied illustration at the Royal College of Art under Edward Bawden and John Nash. He has worked in various media - watercolour, lithography, wood engraving - and at scales ranging from the platform-length murals for Charing Cross underground...
and Dick Smith
Dick Smith
Dick Smith may refer to:*Dick Smith , Australian entrepreneur**Dick Smith , electrical retailer in Australia.**Dick Smith Foods, food brand in Australia*Dick Smith , former player with Manchester United...
.
He married Paola Biagi, an Italian national, in 1956 (they met with a heated discussion about if orange and pink were a good or bad colour pair). He then took up a scholarship to study at the School of Architecture and Design at Yale University
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
, under Alvin Eisenman
Alvin Eisenman
Alvin Eisenman was an influential American graphic designer and educator throughout the last half of the 20th century. He is most notable for founding and heading Yale University's graduate program in graphic design beginning in 1951 — the first graduate program in graphic design in the United States...
, Norman Ives, Herbert Matter
Herbert Matter
Herbert Matter was a Swiss-born American photographer and graphic designer known for his pioneering use of photomontage in commercial art...
, Bradbury Thompson
Bradbury Thompson
Bradbury Thompson was an influential American graphic designer and art director of the twentieth century.-Life and work:Communication Arts said of Bradbury "When it came to the blending of photography, typography and color, nobody did it better than Bradbury Thompson.....
, Josef Albers
Josef Albers
Josef Albers was a German-born American artist and educator whose work, both in Europe and in the United States, formed the basis of some of the most influential and far-reaching art education programs of the 20th century....
and Paul Rand
Paul Rand
Paul Rand Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum, (August 15, 1914 — November 26, 1996) was an American graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Westinghouse, ABC, and Steve Jobs’ NeXT...
. He visited Robert Brownjohn
Robert Brownjohn
Robert Brownjohn was a graphic designer known for blending formal graphic design concepts with wit and sixties pop culture...
, Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar
Tom Geismar
Thomas H. Geismar is an American graphic designer.Geismar studied concurrently at the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University...
in New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
, became friends with Bob Gill
Bob Gill (artist)
Bob Gill , American illustrator and graphic designer. He played the piano at summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to pay his school tuition. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art , Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts , City College of New York...
, and was commissioned by Leo Lionni
Leo Lionni
Leo Lionni was an author and illustrator of children's books. Born in Holland, he moved to Italy and lived there before moving to the United States in 1939, where he worked as an art director for several advertising agencies, and then for Fortune magazine. He returned to Italy in 1962 and started...
to design a cover for Fortune magazine in 1958. After a visit to Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...
, he returned to London in 1959, having worked briefly for Saul Bass
Saul Bass
Saul Bass was a Jewish-American graphic designer and filmmaker, best known for his design of motion picture title sequences....
in Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
and Pirelli
Pirelli
Pirelli & C. SpA is a diverse multinational company based in Milan, Italy. The company, the world’s fifth largest tyre manufacturer, is present in over 160 countries, has 20 manufacturing sites around the world and a network of around 10,000 distributors and retailers.Founded in Milan in 1872,...
in Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...
.
Professional career
Clients included Pirelli
Pirelli
Pirelli & C. SpA is a diverse multinational company based in Milan, Italy. The company, the world’s fifth largest tyre manufacturer, is present in over 160 countries, has 20 manufacturing sites around the world and a network of around 10,000 distributors and retailers.Founded in Milan in 1872,...
, Cunard
Cunard Line
Cunard Line is a British-American owned shipping company based at Carnival House in Southampton, England and operated by Carnival UK. It has been a leading operator of passenger ships on the North Atlantic for over a century...
, Penguin Books
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a publisher founded in 1935 by Sir Allen Lane and V.K. Krishna Menon. Penguin revolutionised publishing in the 1930s through its high quality, inexpensive paperbacks, sold through Woolworths and other high street stores for sixpence. Penguin's success demonstrated that large...
and Olivetti
Olivetti
Olivetti S.p.A. is an Italian manufacturer of computers, printers and other business machines.- Founding :The company was founded as a typewriter manufacturer in 1908 in Ivrea, near Turin, by Camillo Olivetti. The firm was mainly developed by his son Adriano Olivetti...
. Gill left the partnership in 1965 and was replaced by Theo Crosby, so the firm became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. Two new partners joined, and the partnership evolved into Pentagram
Pentagram (design studio)
Pentagram is a design studio that was founded in 1972 by Alan Fletcher, Theo Crosby, Colin Forbes, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky in Needham Road, West London, UK...
in 1972, with Forbes, Crosby, Kenneth Grange
Kenneth Grange
Kenneth Grange, CBE, MCSD, RDI, is a British industrial designer.Grange’s career began as a drafting assistant with the architect Jack Howe in the 1950s...
and Mervyn Kurlansky, with clients including Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...
and Daimler Benz.
Much of his work is still in use: a logo for Reuters
Reuters
Reuters is a news agency headquartered in New York City. Until 2008 the Reuters news agency formed part of a British independent company, Reuters Group plc, which was also a provider of financial market data...
made up of 84 dots, which he created in 1965, was retired in 1992, but his 1989 "V&A" logo for Victoria and Albert Museum
Victoria and Albert Museum
The Victoria and Albert Museum , set in the Brompton district of The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea, London, England, is the world's largest museum of decorative arts and design, housing a permanent collection of over 4.5 million objects...
, and his "IoD" logo for the Institute of Directors
Institute of Directors
The Institute of Directors is a UK-based organisation, established in 1903 and incorporated by royal charter in 1906 to support, represent and set standards for company directors...
remain in use.
In last years he designed the logo for the Italian School of Architecture "Facolta` di Architettura di Alghero", (University of Sassari
University of Sassari
The University of Sassari is a university located in Sassari, Italy. It was founded in 1562 and is organized in 11 Faculties.The University of Sassari gains the first place in the ranking for the best “medium- sized” italian university, in 2009, by the Censis Research Institute.-History and...
).
He left Pentagram in 1992, and worked from the home in Notting Hill
Notting Hill
Notting Hill is an area in London, England, close to the north-western corner of Kensington Gardens, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea...
that he had occupied since the early 1960s, where he was assisted by his daughter Raffaella Fletcher, Leah Klein and Sarah Copplestone, and worked for new clients, such as Novartis
Novartis
Novartis International AG is a multinational pharmaceutical company based in Basel, Switzerland, ranking number three in sales among the world-wide industry...
. Much of his later work was as art director for the publisher Phaidon Press
Phaidon Press
Phaidon Press is a British publisher of books on the visual arts, including art, architecture, photography, and design worldwide.As of 2009, Phaidon's headquarters are in London, UK, though they were in Oxford for many years, with offices in New York City, Paris, Berlin, Milan, and Tokyo...
, which he joined in 1993. For him, life and work were inseparable: "Design is not a thing you do. It's a way of life." (quoted in his obituary in The Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
). He would continue working, even on holiday, drawing on a notepad with a pencil.
A book of his designs, Beware Wet Paint, was published by Jeremy Myerson in 1994. Fletcher also wrote several books about graphic design
Graphic design
Graphic design is a creative process – most often involving a client and a designer and usually completed in conjunction with producers of form – undertaken in order to convey a specific message to a targeted audience...
and visual thinking, most notably The Art of Looking Sideways (2001), which had taken him 18 years to finish.
An exhibition of his life's work was displayed at the Design Museum
Design Museum
Design Museum is a museum by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in central London, England. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. It was founded in 1989 and claims to be the first museum of modern design...
in London between 11 November 2006 until 18 February 2007, alongside the posthumous publication of a book, Picturing and Poeting. The exhibition went on tour in 2008. It was installed at the Ginza
Ginza
is a district of Chūō, Tokyo, located south of Yaesu and Kyōbashi, west of Tsukiji, east of Yūrakuchō and Uchisaiwaichō, and north of Shinbashi.It is known as an upscale area of Tokyo with numerous department stores, boutiques, restaurants and coffeehouses. Ginza is recognized as one of the most...
Graphic Gallery in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
between the 9th and 31st of May 2008, and was installed at the Pitzhanger Manor
Pitzhanger Manor
Pitzhanger Manor House, in Ealing , was owned from 1800 to 1810 by the architect John Soane, who radically rebuilt it. Soane intended it as a country villa for entertaining and eventually for passing to his elder son. He demolished most of the existing building except the two-storey south wing...
Gallery in Ealing
Ealing
Ealing is a suburban area of west London, England and the administrative centre of the London Borough of Ealing. It is located west of Charing Cross and around from the City of London. It is one of the major metropolitan centres identified in the London Plan. It was historically a rural village...
, West London
West (London sub region)
The West is a sub-region of the London Plan corresponding to the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Hammersmith and Fulham, Harrow, Hillingdon and Hounslow. The sub region was established in 2004 and was adjusted in 2008 to include Kensington and Chelsea. The west has a population of 1.6 million and...
, between 14 November 2008 and 3 January 2009.
He won the Prince Philip Prize for Designer of the Year, was President of the Designers and Art Directors Association in 1973 and International President of the Alliance Graphique Internationale
Alliance Graphique Internationale
Alliance Graphique Internationale is a club of the world’s leading graphic artists and designers. There are about 350 members from 27 countries.- History :...
from 1982 to 1985. He was elected to the Hall of Fame of the New York Art Directors Club in 1994, was a senior fellow of the Royal College of Art
Royal College of Art
The Royal College of Art is an art school located in London, United Kingdom. It is the world’s only wholly postgraduate university of art and design, offering the degrees of Master of Arts , Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy...
in 1989 and became an honorary fellow of the London Institute in 2000.
The December 2006 limited-edition cover of Wallpaper* magazine featured one of his last works omitting his calligraphic signature in the compliments slip accompanying his completed work for he was too frail by then.
He died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, and is survived by his wife and daughter.
External links
- Alan Fletcher official website
- Alan Fletcher -Designing Modern Britain (1931–2006) from the British CouncilBritish CouncilThe British Council is a United Kingdom-based organisation specialising in international educational and cultural opportunities. It is registered as a charity both in England and Wales, and in Scotland...
Design MuseumDesign MuseumDesign Museum is a museum by the River Thames near Tower Bridge in central London, England. The museum covers product, industrial, graphic, fashion and architectural design. It was founded in 1989 and claims to be the first museum of modern design... - Obituary, The TimesThe TimesThe Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...
, 26 September 2006 - Obituary, The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
, 26 September 2006 - Obituary, The Daily TelegraphThe Daily TelegraphThe Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...
, 29 September 2006 - Obituary, The IndependentThe IndependentThe Independent is a British national morning newspaper published in London by Independent Print Limited, owned by Alexander Lebedev since 2010. It is nicknamed the Indy, while the Sunday edition, The Independent on Sunday, is the Sindy. Launched in 1986, it is one of the youngest UK national daily...
, 26 September 2006 - The Art of Looking Sideways by Alan Fletcher, a video interview concerning the preparation of the book