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Heaven and helvetica

It is hard to believe today, but there was a time when Helvetica was a rare and costly resource. In my early graphic design studies, I was impressed by the work of Swiss and German typographers and one thing that seemed to characterise them was a cool and distinctive...

Design in the sixties.

The public face of design in the mid 60’s was very much that of product design. In 1944, the Council of Industrial Design had been founded by Hugh Dalton, and in 1956 the first Design Centre opened in Haymarket, London, followed a few years later by the Manchester...

The art student’s first day.

Cigarettes, strangeness and the opposite sex. A little over an hour after completing the administrative formalities we found ourselves in the St Phillip’s annex, a Victorian school building three quarters of a mile from the main college. This was the home to the...

In the begining.

‘Hey, this kid can’t half draw!’ The shout came from Alan, a ginger-haired 13 year old, wearing a Fairisle pullover on top of his pyjamas. We were fellow patients in the Pendlebury Children’s Hospital. I was seven, awaiting the operation to remove my tonsils and...