In the late 90s I wrote a series of feature articles for Design Week. The overarching title was' Heroes' because well, all the featured designers were heroes of mine at various stages of my professional life. Little did I know that the feature you are about to read, written 25 years ago for Design Week on a forgotten, long-retired graphic designer and tutor, would become the most amazing story sparked by my natural curiosity.  So, prepare yourselves, it’s quite a ride.

It’s 1964. The Beatles have released A Hard Days Night, there are only two channels on TV, both in glorious black and white and the pirate station Radio Caroline has begun broadcasting, anchored off the coast of Essex. 

Meanwhile, I have just made my weekly visit to the local library, where I quietly removed book jackets from their hardback covers to add to my growing collection. This was not an activity that I was particularly proud of, but I had convinced myself that I was liberating these jackets from their inevitable disintegration. I knew very little about graphic design at the time and this illicit activity made me feel closer to this world. 

 Why am I telling you all this? Because on that particular day I came across a book jacket that made an immediate impact on me, a cover for Marquis de Sade's Quartet. The simple design structure was unlike anything I had seen before. On the flap was printed ‘Jacket designed by Keith Cunningham’. Over the ensuing years, I noticed more of Cunningham’s work, all with the same economical approach. Nearly 40 years on, I wondered whether this man was still working and set about tracking him down. It was remarkably easy — I simply phoned Peter Owen, the publisher that Cunningham had designed that original book jacket for.

I met Cunningham at his flat, where he has lived for over 40 years with his wife Bobby Hillson — the woman who introduced the first masters’ degree fashion course to Central St Martins School of Art and Design. The flat is full of 1960s decor, with white walls, a paper lantern, a stainless steel and marble coffee table and Marcel Breuer chairs. 

Cunningham was bemused that anyone would want to talk about work he had produced almost 40 years ago. I quickly became aware that he is a very guarded and cautious man, punctuating answers to questions with qualifiers such as, ‘I don't want that on record’ or ‘please don't write that down’. During this slightly uncomfortable start, I noticed something else. There were lots of paintings stacked in groups, all facing the wall. Others on display had been carefully covered with sheets of paper. Intrigued, I asked him for an explanation. He said that he understood our interview would center on his graphic work and didn't want to visually confuse matters. 

Cunningham was born in Sydney in 1929. He left school at 15, with the ability to draw and very little else. He found a job as a general assistant in the ad department of Sydney's largest retailer, David Jones, where he prepared artwork and kept supplies stocked up. One of the frequent visitors to the department was the eminent Australian designer Gordon Andrews Hon RDI. Cunningham was in awe of this glamorous, impressive individual and the professional world he inhabited. He eventually plucked up the courage to speak to him and from that point on Andrews took a keen interest in him, providing books on design and suggesting that he attend evening classes at the East Sydney Technical College. Cunningham had dreams of escaping from an unhappy home life where his father, a violent and unpredictable man when fuelled by alcohol, created an unbearable atmosphere. He became Andrews' assistant, preparing work for the two days a week when Andrews came to the ad department. Cunningham absorbed everything he could from the experience and avidly devoured any book relating to design. 

Eventually, he felt that a better design education was vital to his progress. He set his sights on New York, but Andrews suggested that London would be better for him. At the age of 17, and with a pitiful sum of money, he set sail for London, working his passage by waiting tables. 

London in 1949 was a grim place with much bomb damage. Cunningham had only one contact address in London, the buyers’ office of the David Jones store in Regent Street. He misguidedly believed that they would be able to secure him a place at Central St Martins and headed straight for their offices. They simply drew him a map, pointed him in the right direction and said ‘good luck’. 

Next day, equipped with a portfolio of work, he presented himself, unannounced, at Central St Martins’ reception. Taking pity on him they called Jessie Collins, one of the principals, who interviewed him in the corridor. He was impressed with Cunningham’s work, which he felt showed promise and professionalism. 

He was offered a place there and then, but his great hope for a better design education started to fade: the projects he was set were uninspiring compared to the real world he had been exposed to with Andrews. 

 To supplement his meagre living he worked in the evenings, washing dishes at local restaurants. Either luck or fate was on his side — Gordon Andrews had arrived from Australia and was working as a consultant at the Design Research Unit, famously headed by Sir Misha Black RDI. Andrews was in need of an assistant, so he looked Cunningham up and suggested he take time off to help on some new projects. Cunningham jumped at the chance, and what he thought would be a few weeks work turned into a year. During this time he worked on major exhibition designs, including the Festival of Britain exhibit at the Science Museum. Eventually he was called back to Central St Martins to complete his course, which he did reluctantly, finishing with a thesis on architecture.

He graduated in 1952 and, still yearning for a deeper creative education, he decided to take up a place at the Royal College of Art. At the suggestion of Abram Games RDI, he went to see Rodrigo Moynihan, then the head of painting. Moynihan offered him a place on the fine art course. Here Cunningham worked alongside fellow students Jo Tilson, Frank Auerbach and David Methuen. At last he felt that his heart and mind were being fully engaged. 

During this time his paintings came to the attention of Sir Roger de Grey, Carol Weight and John Minton. They all agreed that Cunningham’s work showed originality and innovation. In 1956, he left the RCA clutching an impressive first, along with a travelling and continuation scholarship. This latter bonus would enable him to devote himself totally to painting without the pressure of money worries. 

He used his travel bursary to explore Spain but returned to London to complete his continuation scholarship. During this time he exhibited at the Royal Academy’s Summer Exhibition, the Beaux Arts Gallery and later with the prestigious London Group show for two consecutive years. This culminated in Cunningham being asked to submit work for full membership to the group — he declined. He then made the even more extraordinary decision to withdraw completely from any further public exhibition of his paintings. However, there are examples of his work in the Olinda Museum in Brazil, the North West Trust Collection in Northern Ireland and the private collection of Elsbeth Juda. 

For me, this was a special period for Cunningham’s graphic work. The designs were mostly produced in only two colours due to financial constraints. 

Rather than hampering the design outcome, Cunningham created covers of great simplicity and effectiveness. Using found imagery or photograms that he would create; he produced a stream of graphic covers with utter economy. His clear and simple approach eventually succumbed to the pressures of change in the marketplace and his style changed. He continued with Peter Owen and took on work from The Economist, designing covers, an identity for the National Book League and the design and production of a series of Art and Design books for Thomas Nelson Publishers. He also continued with his weekly two-day slot at The London College of Printing. 

During the 40-odd years he was there, students such as John Hegarty, Michael Peters, David King, Fernando Gutiérrez and Vince Frost passed through his hands. Few knew much about this Australian, who would crit, their work, underline the importance of understanding the print process and enthuse about the creative coupling of design and photography. Or perhaps simply help point them in the right direction, just as Andrews had done for him all those years ago.

By our second meeting, I was becoming more intrigued by the hidden canvases. Dismissing my curiosity, he turned the subject back to his graphic work. I continued to chip away until he finally agreed to show me his paintings. A week later we strolled to a large, brooding industrial building, originally a laundry, but now converted into a center for small businesses.

Cunningham has rented a studio here for 17 years and I was the 17th ‘invited’ visitor during that time. This was not a building converted to the trendy workspace standards of London's Shoreditch. It had simply been let out with its new inhabitants left to adapt the spaces to suit their particular needs. Cunningham’s space was small, with most of its windows covered to frustrate prying eyes. The room was full to bursting with paintings, neatly covered and stacked to protect them from dust. The windows were sealed shut and the lack of air, combined with an extremely hot evening, made me feel faint. I was allowed to leave the studio door open for some air, only to have it hastily closed by Cunningham when he heard footsteps, saying, ‘I don't want any of those people snooping in here’. But I did have the pleasure of seeing the lifetime work of a man clearly obsessed and driven to paint, something he does every day. 

We returned to his flat and, over a chilled bottle of white wine, we talked further as he showed me more recent work. These were drawings and watercolours, all meticulously placed in cellophane bags and housed in individual folders. There were hundreds, if not thousands of these neatly stacked drawings and paintings, all signed, dated and often containing background notes on subject matter. He showed me a series of 20-odd skyscapes he’d painted from his balcony. These beautifully executed watercolours, each recording the subtle changes of light and movement, were captured like the images from a motor drive camera. 

I left Cunningham on that balmy summer evening, leaving him to gather up the many drawings and watercolours that he had shown me. Driving home, I pondered on the notion that this man had carefully balanced his life, using his design and teaching work to fund his private passion for painting. He had created pieces of work so personal to him that he finds it difficult to share it with others — for fear that they may lose something? Their integrity perhaps? 

Maybe one day there will be an opportunity for more people to see the work of this very private man, whose book jacket design inspired me nearly 40 years ago. 

Copyright © 2001 Mike Dempsey 2001.

Grab yourself a coffee before we move on to the really amazing happenings in part 2.

That original Design Week feature from 2001 attracted attention to Keith's graphic work and a series of interesting things began to happen.

Peter Owen, the publisher for whom Keith had designed book jackets for more than twenty years, staged an exhibition of his cover designs. It was fitting recognition for work that had quietly helped sustain his parallel life as a painter, alongside his two-day-a-week teaching commitment at the London College of Printing.

In 2004, the Barbican exhibition Independent Graphic Design Since the Sixties featured several of Keith's book covers, both in the exhibition and the accompanying publication. Later, the University of Brighton Design Archives acquired examples of his work. At last, Keith was receiving recognition for his contribution to mid-century British graphic design. Then, in 2005, Uscha Pohi, editor of the international art and fashion magazine, Very, reprinted an article about Keith and included part of my Design Week feature, illustrating it with some of Keith's delicate watercolour sky studies.

Nine years passed.

Keith died in 2014 at the age of 85.

Two years later, in early 2016, I received an unexpected phone call from Stephen Rothholz. I quickly discovered that he was the son of HA Rothholz, the highly respected graphic artist responsible for many of the information posters produced for the Post Office and the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents between the 1940s and 1960s.

Stephen had studied graphic design at the London College of Printing. Keith's wife, Bobby Hillson, had been discussing the possibility of staging a small exhibition of Keith's oil paintings from the 1950s and suggested that Stephen contact me.

He was keen for me to see the paintings.

What happened next was one of those strange coincidences that seem too neat to be true.

The works were being stored in the basement of a warehouse in Bowling Green Lane, Clerkenwell — the very street I was living in at the time.

We met one morning in the dark basement, where Stephen began showing me Keith's surviving paintings from his post-war years at the Royal College of Art. Fortunately, we got on immediately. Then another coincidence emerged: Stephen lived only a short walk from me.

The story was becoming stranger by the minute.

Over the following weeks we met regularly at Stephen's wonderfully eccentric house, which reflected his own connections with the world of outsider art and his collaborations with Paul Smith.

Together we formulated a plan.

We were determined, one-way or another, to get Keith's paintings shown publicly.

Money was scarce. I agreed to write and design the catalogue and produce any promotional material we needed. Stephen had located a semi-derelict former post office in Hoxton that was occasionally used as a gallery space and which, with a little care and attention, could host the exhibition. He also organised the cleaning, framing and photography of the nineteen paintings we selected.

Meanwhile, I approached the online creative platform It's Nice That, who agreed to support the exhibition with a feature. I also set up a rudimentary crowd funding campaign, long before Kickstarter and Crowdfunder became household names.

I contacted as many former London College of Printing students as I could trace from Keith's forty years of teaching. Many responded with donations and warm memories of their former tutor. It became clear that Keith had left a lasting impression on a great many people.

Somehow, in remarkably little time, we pulled everything together.

On the evening of 30 September 2016, Keith Cunningham: Unseen Paintings 1954–1960 opened at the Hoxton Gallery.

It was a memorable night, particularly for Bobby, who was able to see her late husband's paintings professionally framed and hanging on gallery walls for the first time.

Among the visitors was Frank Auerbach, who, together with Leon Kossoff, had painted alongside Keith when they were students at the Royal College of Art in the 1950s.

I left that balmy autumn evening with a sense of relief and quiet satisfaction. In some small way, I felt I had repaid a debt to the man whose simple two-colour book jacket had first awakened my interest in design and suggested a possible future.

Before moving on, I should briefly mention Keith's wife of sixty-five years, Bobby Hillson.

Life with Keith cannot always have been easy. His difficult childhood, leaving home at seventeen and a lifetime spent guarding both himself and his work, left him reluctant to talk about either. Yet throughout their long marriage Bobby never wavered in her belief in him or his talent.

After Keith's death in 2014, that belief became a determination to see his work finally receive the audience it deserved. As you have already read, that ambition was eventually realised.

Then came a pleasing twist. It was Bobby's turn to be celebrated.

This is Bobby Hillson, who during her time at Vogue magazine was a sort after fashion illustrator.

In March 2018 she was honoured for her role as the founder and former head of the influential MA Fashion course at Central Saint Martins. The hall was packed with students, graduates and figures from across the fashion world. Looking as elegant as ever, Bobby took to the stage to be interviewed by Ike Rust, one of her former students.

During the evening she recalled many of the designers who had passed through the course, among them John Galliano, John Flett, Simon Foxton, Fiona Dealey, John McKitterick, Nick Coleman, Sonja Nuttall and Alexander McQueen.

In another curious twist to this increasingly improbable story, the documentary McQueen was released that same year. It was Bobby who appeared at both the beginning and the end of the film, sharing her memories of the late designer with cinema audiences around the world.

Time for another coffee.

Back to the main story, a month or so after the exhibition closed, Stephen telephoned. Some people, he explained, wanted to see the rest of Keith's work, still stored in that Clerkenwell warehouse basement.

"They're very interested," he said.

Over the following months there were numerous visits. Stephen remained discreet about who was coming and why. Then, sometime later, he called again.

The mysterious visitors had purchased virtually everything.

Thousands of watercolour sky studies, paintings, drawings, and sketchbooks — it seemed that almost every surviving piece of work Keith had produced had been acquired.

The identity of the buyer remained secret for another six years.

Then, in February 2022, Keith Cunningham's forgotten work was reintroduced to the art world in The Cloud of Witness at Newport Street Gallery. More than seventy works were exhibited alongside a beautifully produced publication.

The mystery was solved.

Damien Hirst, whose enthusiasm for post-war British art is well known, had acquired the collection. Something in Keith's work had clearly struck a chord.

Keith’s daily obsession of creating sky studies, which amounted to over four thousand show at the HENI gallery exhibition in London.

In 2024 I was interviewed and appeared in the documentary film, Keith Cunningham: The Lost Master made by HENI’s production company. Which you can see here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Usq12Z7znmc

Another exhibition followed in June 2025 at HENI Gallery in Soho: Keith Cunningham: The Lost Master. This time the focus was on the extraordinary sky studies produced between 1984 and 2002, accompanied by a series of beautifully published books exploring different aspects of Keith's life and work.

more books

Three from six beautifully curated books from publishers HENI.

There was one final and extraordinary twist.

This painting was up for sale at the auction house Bonhams in London.

Not bad for an artist who had spent most of his life hiding his work from view.

Wherever Keith may now be in the universe, I suspect he would be astonished that the interview he agreed to back in 2001 helped set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to this remarkable resurrection.

Copyright © Mike Dempsey 2026.

We live in an age when fewer graphic designers have a clearly defined visual identity, preferring instead to be all things to all clients, along with the buzzword so often heard today: “collaboration.” But there was a time when you could recognise a designer’s work from twenty paces. One such designer was David King, whose design work was unapologetically in your face: bold juxtapositions of image and type, vibrant colour, and a visual language that drew heavily on the traditions of Russian Constructivism of the 1910s and 1920s.

Back in 2001, I interviewed David for my Heroes series in Design Week. With a little brushing up, here it is again.

Just a few days before this interview took place I was slumped in front of my TV set, idly switching channels, when I hit what appeared to be a scene from a medieval battle film. My vision sharpened with the aid of my glasses and it became clear that this was no re-enactment, but the present day streets of Bradford.

Under a torrent of bricks and petrol bombs, an army of riot police was in retreat. Amidst this onslaught, flashes of yellow, red and black could be seen. They made up the familiar logo of the Anti-Nazi League. Against this dramatic back- drop I'd like to introduce my next hero, whose life, politics and profession are inextricably linked. He is David King.

If you mention Islington these days, Tony Blair comes to mind, along with wine bars, the Almeida Theatre and the buzz of trendy north London. So I was surprised to learn that King lives in this pocket of affluence. In fact, he has lived here for 35 years, long before the Volvo set moved in. But King stayed, and here I was standing outside his Victorian terraced house, amused by its red painted front door, which, as you will discover, is highly appropriate.

King was born in Isleworth in 1943 into a middle class family. His father worked in banking and they lived a pleasant, quiet and uneventful life. As a young boy, King spent a lot of his time with a maiden aunt, who had a more creative outlook to life than he was used to. An avid collector of china and porcelain, she would often take her nephew on outings to museums and art galleries. There was also an uncle who was a committed socialist. King was drawn to this and fascinated by the stories his uncle would tell of Russia and the iron curtain, which sounded ominous but exciting.

At 17 his Soviet and creative interests had matured. He was torn between pursuing Russian Studies or opting for a more artistic pursuit. He chose the latter and took a place at the London College of Printing. King remembers the first two years as a hopeless mess. He couldn't find a direction and was faltering. Three very sympathetic tutors came to the rescue, Robin Fior, Richard Hollis and Keith Cunningham. They helped him find a voice in his final year.

In particular, he remembers Cunningham suggesting that he look at the films of the great Russian director Sergei Eisenstein. King followed up on this and was overwhelmed by what he saw. Eisenstein's unique use of montage and dramatic framing was to stay with King and have a direct influence on his work.

He left LCP and joined Queen magazine as an assistant to the great editorial designer Tom Wolsey responsible for the now legendary Town magazine. Wolsey left Queen to start his own advertising agency and invited King to join him. This was a short-lived excursion as King found the work dull in comparison to the glamour and buzz of the magazine world. He briefly took up a design post with The Observer, working alongside Raymond Hawkey and Roger Law - the man who later went on to create Spitting Image.

Then, in 1965, he was approached by Michael Rand to join The Sunday Times Magazine. This was to be the making of King. He enjoyed the collaboration with highly talented. photographers and writers, becoming great friends with Bruce Chatwin and the photojournalist Don McCullin. He quickly graduated to art editor and, as well as commissioning illustration and photography, he began to generate ideas for features. He recalls wanting to be self-sufficient when going on an assignment. He asked McCullin to give him some pointers on using a camera and McCullin went one better. He not only told him what camera, lenses and film stock to use, but also took him out and gave him a three-hour crash-course in taking pictures. At the end of this, McCullin said, 'That's all you'll ever need to know, David.' King still uses the same camera - a manual Nikon F3. During his ten-year period at the magazine he, along with Rand, clocked up a staggering rate of D&AD Gold and Silver awards. It was a rich period in 20th century history with the Vietnam war, manned space flight, the first heart transplant, the Six day war, Watergate and many high-profile assassinations, providing dramatic stories and images for King's design talent.

At that time the magazine was highly influential in the creative field and employed the best writers, illustrators, photographers and designers. King recalls the adrenaline rush he got from the environment, with its tobacco-laden air and the manic noise generated by journalists hammering away at their typewriters. This is in stark contrast to a visit King made to the magazine's offices recently, where staff were peering at PC screens, typing in an eerie silence and breathing in a smoke-free zone.

It was at The Sunday Times Magazine that King was given his first opportunity to visit Russia for a pictorial feature on the October Revolution. He found out that the authorities had manipulated history by eradicating major political figures from official photographs. The absence of Trotsky particularly fascinated King, prompting him to go in search of original, uncensored material. This was to be the beginning of a lifelong passion.

During his time at The Sunday Times Magazine King would take on the occasional out- side job. One notorious project came about in 1968 when Chris Stamp - brother of Terence - asked him to design some album covers for his label, Track Records. King was given 36 hours to come up with a concept and finished artwork for the new Jimi Hendrix album Electric Ladyland. For reasons that he cannot now quite recall, he decided to have David Montgomery photograph 20 naked women for its double cover. What King does recall is that he wanted to create an image that was an antidote to the glamourised Playboy fantasy of women. He wanted these women to look real. They did, and many a spotty teenage boy spent an unhealthy amount of time ogling over the anatomical differences. The American market found the image too startling and promptly banned it.

He was given six weeks' access to Muhammad Ali during his preparation for the Joe Frazier fight. Using the trusty Nikon F3 he photographed him during his intense training regime. King contrasted this with Ali's more intimate family moments. The result was a unique photo feature and an approach by Penguin Books. This led to the publication of I am King, a large format pictorial biography on Ali, which went on to sell 150 000 copies. Many more opportunities and awards would come King's way.

By 1975 The Sunday Times Magazine had undergone several changes of editor. King had reduced his working week to three days, allowing him time to pursue other interests. When Hunter Davies arrived to take up the editorship, King decided it was time to quit and move on. He was keen to devote more of his time to political causes. But there was to be a more dramatic fate waiting to befall him. While he was out driving, just a short distance from his home, he was hit broadside by a car. The force of the blow fractured his skull and he was hospitalised and out of circulation for almost a year. The effect of his injury disoriented him so much that he was unable to deal with more than one person at a time. Eventually he recovered, started picking up the pieces and began looking for work. Interest came from David Pelham at Penguin Books, art director during the 1970s. Pelham tapped into King's historical and political interests and gave him a constant flow of book covers to design. This was the ideal opportunity for King to draw from his now substantial photographic archive.

Settling into a freelance rhythm, he rented a studio in London's Clerkenwell, again long before the location was on the estate agent's hit list. He fulfilled his wish to become a political designer by donating his creative energies to the ANL, the Anti-Apartheid movement, a leftist Trotskyite faction and many other political activists that he found sympathy with. King was very much out on a limb in donating so much of his time to these causes. He told me that he couldn't bear to see so much amateurishly designed print material being pushed out by these small political groups. He wanted to demonstrate that through well thought out and effectively designed material, their messages would stand a far better chance of getting through. He was amused when he heard that the police had questioned some members of the ANL, asking which advertising agency had been responsible for its print material.

His work is uncompromisingly direct, often employing wood block type, primary colours and a dynamic juxtaposition of type to image. It hits you like a 'Wanted' poster. He makes no secret of his love of the work of the Russian Revolutionary designer Gustav Klutsis and the German Dadaist and political collagist John Heartfield. He met Heartfield before his death in 1968 and subsequently became great friends with his widow, who often stayed with King when she was visiting London. Eisenstein also had a profound effect on him thanks to Keith Cunningham; King uses cinematic terms (close up, wide shot), to describe his own work.

A re-entry into magazines came in 1983. Around this time, there was a lot of unrest in the journalistic world. There had been problems at the London listings magazine Time Out, culminating in a breakaway group which set up in direct competition with its former employer. City Limits was the result of this new collective. King was called in to design the covers, which he did for over a year. The title eventually failed, along with another similar listings magazine, Event, funded by Richard Branson, leaving Time Out as the victor.

King took over the art directorship of Crafts in 1985. His strong graphic presence often over- whelmed the more delicate items featured in the magazine. King remembers the excursion as simply a vehicle to fund other activities.

The most significant turning point for King and his unique collection came in 1985, with the arrival of Gorbachev on the Russian political stage. With him came a new mantra of Glasnost (openness) and Perestroika (restructuring). This newfound freedom unleashed an immediate world interest in all things Russian. The country's chequered political history became a central theme for magazine features, books and television documentaries. They all needed authentic, uncensored visual material.

All those years King spent unearthing Stalinist suppressed material, plus posters, books and graphics collected from all over the Soviet Union and many other parts of the world, had finally paid off. This renewed interest enabled him to produce the books, such as Trotsky, and The Great Purges. His latest is The Commissar Vanishes - a book of photographic falsifications which features censored photographs adjacent to their untampered originals.

This year saw a revival of King's powerful 1974 black-and-white photographs of Muhammad Ali in an exhibition at Fior Photo - run by the son of Fior, one of the trio of LCP tutors who helped guide King over 40 years earlier. Later this year there will be an exhibition of revolutionary posters from King's collection at Tate Modern at Bankside. He also has three new books on the go.

As a graphic designer, King has always been an outsider, shunning the security of a design consultancy or the world of advertising, opting instead to follow his heart and mind. He learned from the many friendships made at The Sunday Times Magazine that it was possible to keep beavering away to uncover a truth. Through his painstakingly pieced together, self- funded collection he can now share this truth with the world. As a graphic designer he has been exceptionally generous in donating his time to enable many small political organisations to have a powerful visual voice.

Towards the end of our meeting King showed me some of his favourite pieces from his archive. He spoke of these with an infectious enthusiasm, pointing out particular areas of typography and image that he admired. As I watched him, I imagined that elderly aunt back in the 1950s, pointing into a dusty museum cabinet, with the young King in tow, saying, 'Look at that David, it's history.'

First published in 2021. © Mike Dempsey 2026.

David King’s Russian collection grew to over 250,000 items, which have formed the basis for a series of exhibitions and a special gallery in the Tate Modern.  Stephen F. Cohen, a professor of Russian studies, described King’s work as “a one-man archaeological expedition into the lost world, the destroyed world of the original Soviet leadership. He was determined to unearth everything that Stalin had buried so deeply and so bloodily.”

David King died of a heart attack at his London home in May 2016.

I was first introduced to Raymond Hawkey's work at an evening class on a November evening in 1961. Our teacher - who during the day worked in the design department of the Daily Express - showed us examples of work produced there. This was a series of illustrated banner heads, an innovation that had been pioneered by Hawkey. These mini graphic triggers helped to direct readers towards a particular feature. They were produced using a simple photographic line technique, ideal for crude letterpress printing. They looked startling within the context of the paper's conventional layout.

Fast-forward 40 years, and I am heading for the lift in an 18-floor, 1960s tower block that looms over London's fashionable Notting Hill. This is where Hawkey has lived for over 30 years and I am about to meet him for the first time. As he welcomes me into his flat, I am taken aback by the view from its panoramic window. It is quite breathtaking to see London looking magical on this particularly clear night with a stream of jewel-like twinkling lights from the constantly moving traffic below.

The first thing I notice about Hawkey is that he is immaculately turned out, as can be seen in the above photo. So much so that I became a little self-conscious about the state of my rather scuffed boat shoes and crumpled corduroy jacket. This attention to his appearance was just as evident in the presentation of his home. It reflected his vision and farsightedness in selecting Charles and Ray Eames, Eero Saarinen and Hille furniture when he first took on the flat. All looked remarkably current and orderly in this classic late 1960s setting.

Most of the walls were taken up with Hawkey's passion for all things nautical; a ship's wheel, compass, figurehead, prints, photographs and paintings of tall ships, all beautifully arranged. As a boy Hawkey had lived by the sea, which he loved. I suspect this was his way of keeping that connection going in the heart of a throbbing city

Hawkey was born in Plymouth in 1930, an only child. His father worked as a commercial traveller. Neither of Hawkey's parents had any creative leanings. Indeed, his father had decided that he wanted his son to become an accountant, something he himself had hankered after. But the young Hawkey developed a natural gift for drawing, which must have been a genetic throwback to a creative ancestor. He was happiest with a pencil and paper, escaping into a fantasy world drawn from his fertile imagination.

Hawkey was a bright boy and won a scholarship to grammar school. 

It was here that he was singled out by the headmaster - a man with artistic interests himself - who recognised Hawkey's creative ability. He greatly encouraged the young Hawkey and directed him towards a course in general arts at the Plymouth School of Art. From the ages of 16 to 20, Hawkey immersed himself in what had become an all-consuming passion. He achieved a National Diploma in Design and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Art to study illustration.

But Hawkey found the RCA illustration course in 1950 very dull, punctuated with endless life drawing classes and a distinctly nostalgic approach to the craft. He managed to persuade his tutor to let him switch to the graphics course.

He quickly secured a post on the RCA magazine ARK as assistant art director. A little later he became its art director. He saw this as an opportunity to push the visual presentation of the magazine forward, which, until that point, had a rather classical dusty feel. He outraged the rector Robin Darwin by introducing illustration and photography to ARK's covers. To supplement his small grant, he took on illustration commissions from the Central Office of Information. He also helped out the picture editor of The Sunday Graphic - a long since defunct title.

Towards the end of his time at the RCA he was increasingly moving in publishing and editorial circles. One evening when helping out at a literary launch party, a colleague noticed that a young man had gatecrashed the proceedings and he asked Hawkey to politely, but firmly show him the door. Hawkey, however, struck up a conversation with this eager young man - who as it turned out was also attending the RCA, was also studying design, was also an Aquarian, had the same fanatical love of detail, shared the same dry sense of humour and also the contempt for a lot of the pomposity evident at the RCA. A rare meeting of hearts and minds had taken place and there, amid the clinking wine glasses and literary banter, a life-long friendship was formed. 

As it turned out, this literary backdrop was going to have a dramatic effect on both of their lives. In particular the young gatecrasher. His name was Len Deighton.

Prior to graduating from the RCA, Hawkey entered a design talent competition organised by Vogue magazine. He not only won, but was offered a job by the magazine's parent company Conde Nast. Here he became art director of magazine promotion and he quickly familiarised himself with the editorial world. He spent three happy years there. There was a short period with the ad agency Colman Prentis and Varley as an art director. In 1959 he was offered a position with Beaverbrook Newspapers to art direct a new magazine that was set to rival the great American title Fortune. Alas, it never saw the light of day, but Hawkey's talents had not gone unnoticed and he was made design director of the Daily Express. It was here that he quickly introduced graphic devices into the editorial pages. He trail-blazed the use of diagrams to help demystify complex news items. He often teamed up with a reporter and went on assignments to crime scenes. It was in this context that his work contributed to the arrest of a rapist and murderer through his accurate reconstruction of the attacker's likeness as described by a witness, before identikit pictures were the norm. Hawkey's graphic use of banner heads revolutionised the look of newspaper features and very quickly other major papers followed suit

While Hawkey was at The Daily Express, Deighton had established a career in advertising as an art director. This was a love/hate relationship for him as he found the profession overrun by ex-public school types, whom he found tiresome. However, he redirected this irritation into writing. Hawkey remembers being handed a draft manuscript by Deighton in 1960. It was called The lpcress File. On reading it, Hawkey realised that Deighton could afford to turn his back on the advertising world. Because, there on the page was Harry Palmer the bespectacled sophisticated working class antihero who enjoyed cooking and worked as an intelligence officer.

Although very capable himself, Deighton asked Hawkey to design the cover of The lpcress File.

What Hawkey did with it was one of the key moments in British design history. It is important to view this work in the context of the period. Hawkey's photographic use of inanimate objects to give a narrative dimension to the cover was startlingly new and made a dramatic impact on the publishing scene, which at the time tended to favour illustration as in the work of Richard Chopping for the long-running Ian Fleming James Bond series, which latter in their Pan paperback form Hawkey would have had a major hand in.

Coincidentally, in the very same year, on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean, the US film To Kill a Mockingbird was released, featuring a wonderful opening title sequence by the American designer Stephen Frankfurt. I have often wondered whether this was serendipitous or whether Hawkey and Frankfurt had ever met or were aware of each other's work. Seven years later, to my mind, Hawkey produced his masterpiece when he worked with film director Richard Attenborough on Oh! What a Lovely War.

But all was not plain sailing for Hawkey’s work. When publisher Hodder was first shown the cover of The lpcress File, they were not happy at all and found the design too spartan, with its black-and-white photography, plain background, and small, undifferentiated typography, but both Deighton and Hawkey held firm. They were right because, upon publication in 1962, The lpcress File sold out within 24 hours. A classic example of the blinker publishing sales departments that are always firmly rooted in the status quo.

One of the most sort after Hawkey covers is for Billion Dollar Brain printed onto silver foil silver foil surface with a white, pictoral, dotted with a computer code strip, reflecting the novel's thematic focus on computer-driven intelligence.

A few years later, Michael Caine was to make Harry Palmer his own in the film version of the book. 

In 1964, Hawkey became presentation director of the Observer and its colour magazine, concentrating on enhancing layout and improving the quality of the magazine's covers. In parallel with this, he became a much sought-after book cover designer.

Hawkey was always linked with Deighton's work but was also the favoured designer for Kingsley Amis, Jane Gaskill, Ian Fleming, Thomas Hinde, Gavin Lyall, Frederick Forsyth, and many others.

Hawkey's dramatic influence and modern approach to book cover design spawned imitators that turned his simple graphic approach into a design cliche. To a certain extent, Hawkey became a victim of his own success. The clarity and inventiveness of his later cover work were often defused by over-large typography brought about, I suspect, by the increasingly aggressive publishing sales departments, who have always managed to dilute creative work.

One of Hawkey’s most memorable pieces came about once again through Deighton, who had formed a film production company. He had written the film script for Oh! What a Lovely War. It was to be Richard Attenborough's directorial debut and Deighton commissioned Hawkey to design the film's titles. He approached this with the perfectionism that had become his trademark. To convey the tragedy of the First World War, he used carefully chosen objects, sensitively photographed by David Cripps to create a building narrative over the sequence. Starting with items reflecting the jingoistic flag-waving, King and Country mentality, the images move on to symbolise the ultimate result of war. Death is represented by a skull and, in the last frame, a lone red poppy. Although a simple series of still images with the titles superimposed, the sequence retains its tragic impact. In another designer's hands it could have easily slipped into a nostalgic pastiche. Going back to1964 and the Stephen Frankfurt’s titles for To Kill a Mockingbird you can see the visual link.

In 1974 Hawkey turned the tables on the publishing world by becoming a thriller writer himself. Encouraged greatly by Deighton, over a ten-year period he has produced three novels, Wild Card, Side Effect and It. All have received glowing reviews and an option has been taken up on It for a possible feature film.

Sadly the film never happened. Hawkey, then into his seventies, understandably took things a little easier, but continued with writing a new novel, and he occasionally acted as an editorial consultant. Having a bolthole in Brighton enabled him to enjoy the lure of the sea with his wife Mary.

Raymond died on 22 August 2010 after a long illness at home with his wife. And on 15 March 2026 Len Deighton died, at age 97.

First published in 2021. © Mike Dempsey 2026.

When I originally discussed my Heroes series idea for Design Week with editor Lynda Relph-Knight back in 2001, the first designer I intended to feature was John Gorham. Unfortunately, on telephoning him, I learned from his wife Pauline that he had been ill for some time and was not in the right frame of mind to talk to anyone at present. We left it that she would call me when he was feeling stronger. The call never came. John died. What follows is what became my post tribute to him in Design Week, when it was a physical magazine.

Mike Dempsey takes an affectionate look at graphic designer John Gorham, a friend and colleague who spent his life striving for perfection in his work.

I first met him in 1968 when I had just joined the publishing house William Heinemann as its art director. One of the first tasks was to seek a group of freelance designers whom I admired and who would be willing to accept the embarrassingly low fees on offer. Luckily, designers love to tackle book covers and always have. The tradition goes back a long way and somehow money never seems to figure in the equation. This was heartening for me because one of the designers I wanted to net was John.  At the time he shared a large, airy studio in London's Regent Street with fellow designer Richard Weaver. It was an exciting time for John; his work was beginning to appear everywhere, particularly in advertising. His vibrant, hand-lettered logotype for the Watney's Roll out the Red Barrel campaign had made a great impact and everyone was clamouring for his unique ability as a creative lettering artist.

Not knowing what to expect at our first meeting, I was immediately struck by his almost childlike enthusiasm for design. I found it refreshing to discover that I was not the only one with this all-consuming passion. Neither of us had received formal training in design, so we found common ground immediately and struck up a friendship, employing the verbal shorthand used by people familiar with their subject.

He became a regular visitor to my cramped attic studio at William Heinemann's Mayfair offices. I always looked forward to these visits, just to see how long he would keep me waiting before unveiling the design he had been working on. John would never be rushed and our meetings could effortlessly burn up an hour. After the second cup of tea, he would finally unzip his faithful black leather portfolio to reveal an impeccably hand-rendered rough. I was in awe of his ability.

He would then set about telling me just how much better the real thing would be, and with John, the real thing would undergo constant changes right up to the wire. He was a consummate craftsman whose typography, illustration and hand-lettering were immaculately finished. He also had an exceptional talent for ideas. Just a glance at Beryl McAlhone and David Stuart's 1998 book, A Smile in the Mind is testament to this.

When I moved on to another publishing house, John was on hand to give me support. Over the next ten-year period, our paths often crossed. In the 1970s, we both became involved with a new generation of film-makers from the world of advertising. David Puttnam was central to this, and John relished the prospect of working for the cinema, beginning with his graphics and titles for Alan Parker's Bugsy Malone. Many more followed, including Chariots of Fire, The Mission, Fame, Greystoke, Local Hero and Cal. Puttnam, who supplied John with a constant stream of enviable work, produced most of these films.

He became the bespoke designer of personal stationery for the ad industry elite. Each design was lovingly crafted and agonised over, then printed on just the right choice of paper, often beautifully die-stamped. Parker used his for sending wittily penned cartoons.

In between all this glamorous work, John found time to design a continuous stream of book covers, just a fraction featured in this the blog post.

For a time John was based in Covent Garden, but after a while he decided to abandon London to work from his home in Surrey. He settled into a routine. I can remember him telling me not to ring him on a Friday because that was the day that Pauline drove him into Guildford to do the weekly shop at Sainsbury's (John never learned to drive). I think he missed the chance encounters that occur when working in a bustling city. This lack of daily contact made his visits to London even more important. He would try to fill his entire day with appointments, often topped off with a visit to David Drummond's Victorian Pastimes and Pleasures, off St Martin's Lane. Here he would positively get a high, leafing through old children's annuals, posters, programmes, magazines and Victorian scraps.

John had a formidable collection of printed ephemera, which he always referred to as his "treasures". These would be carefully stored in boxes destined for the attic, only to be opened when he needed a little fix. He told me he was becoming worried about the weight of all this stuff on the ceiling and that he was seriously considering having it reinforced.

He would often collaborate with other creatives on projects, but these individuals had to demonstrate the same commitment to their craft as he did to his own. They included photographer the late Tony Evans, designer Howard Brown and illustrators Andrew Davidson, Allan Manham and Arthur Robbins.

John's range was quite staggering, including posters, packaging, book covers, film titles, calendars, wine labels, postage stamps, magazine spreads, books, logotypes, illustrations and typefaces.  I think I was one of the first people to see his rough concepts for the British Design & Art Direction silver award-winning Winsor & Newton ink packaging. It was clear at first glance that this piece of work was going to have a major impact on the field of packaging design. What followed in that area clearly shows the influence of his work.

The great work he produced for was, in my view, heightened because of the tactical competition between Gorham and John McConnell, who designed for and was very involved with Face at the time. Being pitched against McConnell's formidable talent is a daunting prospect, but John would always manage to pull it off, producing some of his most witty and intelligent pieces.

The film poster he produced with Howard Brown for Red Monarch featured a portrait of Josef Stalin on which there is the most perfectly placed squashed tomato, photographed by Tony Evans. Imagine three perfectionists on one job - it must have been a nightmare.

During the late 1970s and early 1980s, John experienced a new challenge, teaching at the Royal College of Art. He was proud of this, but it was mixed with amusement, because of his own lack of any formal design training.

As the 1990s progressed, John found it harder to come to terms with the impact that new technology had made on the design industry. Doggedly refusing to embrace the Apple Mac, he sent out a defiant mailer to all his clients and friends. On it was a photograph of the back of a crumpled envelope and below that a pencil, it simply said, "My only gizmo and its mouse". It summed John up perfectly. The thought of losing direct physical contact with his work was something he could not envisage.

But the world moved on and the traditional methods of working were cast aside. No more painstakingly separated artwork with Kodatrace overlays. Or the tracing covers, lovingly "spec'd" up for the printer. No more type mark-ups for the compositor, using the symbols that, to many designers today, look like a foreign language. John felt out of tune with the world he once knew so well. He believed sometimes that he was left holding a torch that represented an attention to detail that no one seemed to care about any more.

He settled for a quieter life, turning his attention to his other passion of gardening. His garden was lovingly tended with a vegetable patch that would have made even Beatrix Potter's Mr McGregor green with envy. He would continue to work on the occasional project, but it would have to be on his terms. Stamps to celebrate the Queen Mother's birthday and two Christmas issues all bore the hallmarks of John's approach to graphic design.  David Puttnam told me, just after he had been made a Peer of the Realm, that he had commissioned John to design his heraldic crest. It was a job that demanded the range of craft-based skills that only John possessed and he salivated at the prospect. Davidson was planning to collaborate with John on two books about the countryside. They had long and enthusiastic conversations about the projects, before John became unwell and was unable to work.

The last piece of work that I received from John was his annual Christmas card, something he hadn't missed for over 30 years. The card was to celebrate the coming of the new Millennium. It featured two partygoers holding their champagne glasses aloft. The juxtaposition of their festive hats created the shape of a double “M”. There's always an idea with John.

He was one of the few people who was equally loved and admired by both the design and advertising communities. In 1993 he received the D&AD President's Award. The array of influential industry figures that paid homage to him on that night was astonishing.

John never had children, but when I think of it, perhaps his work was his children. He would lovingly nurture each piece of work into life, with all the care and attention afforded to a newborn baby.

For me he is an equivalent of John Betjeman, a great favourite of John's. The countryside, the changing seasons, the ordinary everyday quirkiness of the English and the wealth of craft left behind from another era were all things that John cared about passionately.

First published in 2021. © Mike Dempsey 2026.

Last words:  As a designer John's approach was steeped in the culture of a bygone age, when every decorative element was lovingly crafted, from the everyday explication of the humble cigarette card and the flamboyant hand-drawn lettering of enamelled advertising signs, to the sumptuous binding cases of children's books with the colour plates protected by glassine paper. John loved the precious and tactile quality of the printed medium. My abiding memory is of John living out the half-timbered Englishness of a gentler era a period of Morris Minors, striped lawns, garden sheds, The Archers on the radio, people saying sorry when you bumped into them, the sound of summer bees mingling with Test Match Special, and the milkman whistling cheerfully as he went about his round. "Morning, Mr Gorham. Just the one pint today? Garden's looking nice again." As John would say - magical.

For many of us, Alan Fletcher was always part of the graphic landscape, fully formed and brilliant. So it’s hard to imagine him as a twenty-something trying to find a creative identity in the ravages of post-war London: a grim, rationed, fog-laden, gloomy place. In 1950, he wove his way through a series of art schools, culminating in the prestigious Central School of Arts and Crafts. Here, he found like-minded students: Derek Birdsall, Terence Conran, Colin Forbes and Theo Crosby. This little gang had a plethora of inspirational tutors at their disposal, including Paul Hogarth, Victor Pasmore, Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, and many more. The place was bubbling with experimentation, optimism, and a vision for a future Britain. 

That ethos continued later when Alan was awarded a place at The Royal College of Art, another hothouse of surfacing talent, including Len Deighton, Dennis Bailey, David Gentleman, Joe Tilson and Peter Blake. While there, he secured an exchange scholarship to the Yale School of Art and Design in the United States.

In 1956, sporting a full head of hair and with his young wife, Paola, on his arm, Alan set sail for the land of plenty, bustling with vibrant colour and unapologetic energy. It was a revelation and something he embraced with open arms. At Yale, he was again blessed with tutors of exceptional talent, among them Paul Rand, Bradbury Thompson and Josef Albers. While in the States, Alan kept in touch with Colin Forbes and was sad to discover that he was having a depressing time in London. “Come over, you’ll love it”, suggested Alan. Forbes did just that and was picked up from the airport by Alan and Paola in a classic open-top roadster. They spent the entire evening driving around the dramatic skyscraper canyons of Manhattan. Forbes camped out in Fletcher’s apartment, and the stay did the trick: when Forbes departed back to London, there was a definite spring in his step, and a seed had been planted in his mind that would blossom two decades later.

Before leaving America, Alan made a point of zooming around New York, Chicago and Los Angeles, making many lifelong friends along the way while freelancing for some of the most creative art directors of the time, including Saul Bass and Leo Lionni.

His time in America gave him not only a professional edge but also the confidence to return to London.

Alan’s journey back home from New York actually went via Venezuela (an ill-judged fantasy, but that’s another story) and then on to Italy with Paola. While there, he worked for Pirelli in Milan. When he finally returned to London, he still held the memory of his exhilarating time in the States, but that image was abruptly brought back down to earth. London was even more depressing than when he’d left three years earlier. Teenagers looked like their parents, apart from the odd Teddy Boy. There was little design work to be had. The industry was still termed ‘commercial art’, and what good stuff there was went to the established guard of the day: Milner Grey, Henrion, Misha Black, Abram Games et al. Alan longed to be back in the noise and neon of New York, where everything was big and blowsy, and work was plentiful and well-paid. Thanks to the connections he had made in New York, he’d secured a three-day-a-week consultancy for Time and Life in London, along with work from Pirelli and a one-day-a-week teaching post at Central School, thanks to Colin Forbes, who was head of graphics. Alan rented a studio space in Colin’s flat. With the security of some income from his two clients, he began to work.

During the tail end of Alan’s time in New York, he’d made a point of contacting the city’s creative set. He’d been keen to seek out Bob Gill, a young ‘hot’ designer at the time. But it never happened. Back in London, he settled into a daily routine in his basement studio at Forbes’s flat. One evening, his phone rang: “Hello Alan, it’s Bob Gill. I’m in London. Can we meet?” The die was being cast for the beginning of something very special.

Alan introduced Bob Gill to Colin Forbes. They all seemed to get along swimmingly, admiring one another’s work. Discussions of getting together formally became a regular talking point, which, as Alan recalled, was endless. It was only after some clairvoyant advice given to Gill in a caravan that they finally agreed to join forces. Work was divided up, and they found a nice little space thanks to Gill, who persuaded an ad agency he’d been involved with to bankroll the purchase of a small house in a mews just off Baker Street. A year passed while the property was being renovated, and on April Fools’ Day 1962, the Fletcher/Forbes/Gill doors were opened on what was to become a devastating force in British graphics.

At first, it was just the three of them, all very hands-on, plus a receptionist and her dog. With not enough work to occupy all of them, they would often spend time in nearby cafés bitching about London and philosophising about design while puffing away on Gauloises and downing copious amounts of coffee.

What little work they had came from Time and Life, Pirelli and Penguin Books. With the latter client, they’d argue over who was to design the cover, for the handsome fee of £30 (around £830 in today’s money).

One day, Alan recalled returning from lunch to discover their receptionist painting her fingernails. Perturbed by this lack of conscientiousness, there were huddled discussions and talks of firing, but Alan had a better idea. He told her they would promote her and that she would now be the receptionist and bookkeeper. It worked. The nail varnish never reappeared.

The idea of passing on their wisdom in book form was established with A Sign Systems Manual, Identity Kits, and Graphic Design: Visual Comparisons, and it was the beginning of many to follow. And up popped a new partner in the shape of Theo Crosby.

The idea of bringing Crosby into the fold came from Forbes, which felt that involvement in buildings and interiors would give them greater design possibilities. Alan could see the potential of this and agreed. Gill was not so sure but went along with it anyway. But in a short space of time, Gill’s patience wore thin. He found the whole protracted world of architecture infuriating, preferring the immediacy of graphics. As a hot-headed and opinionated character, he was always destined to work under his own remit, and so, three short years after joining, one of the key figures in Britain’s most influential graphics trio packed his portfolio and left. Eventually, the new, wider design offer did lead to bigger and higher profile clients, with the new trio dealing with decision-makers at the top of the pile, rather than underlings. Shell, Arthur Andersen, Reuters and Canard all became significant clients. They settled in to build on their dream.

The early 1970s saw significant growth, and the three partners now had teams of assistants and often collaborated with external, established designers. As with many companies of a certain size, talk of expansion arises. They had been in conversation with the product designer Kenneth Grange and one of their own associate designers, Mervyn Kurlansky, about formalising a new partnership.

Alan was forever delving into books for pearls of wisdom and witty quotations. And the story goes he’d been reading a book on witchcraft and became intrigued by the name ‘Pentagram’: a five-pointed star. Although none of the others liked it much, the name stuck, and so Pentagram was born. The five partners established a new business structure. Everyone would receive the same salary, regardless of their individual workflow; everyone would be responsible for their own profit centres, and everyone would contribute to a communal fund for rent, administration costs, and special projects. This mechanism would serve the partnership well for many years to come. By the late 1970s, Pentagram was installed in a canal-side building overlooking Paddington Station, described by Alan as: “One of the best views of East Germany in London”. The studio had an air of calm professionalism, with an endless array of strutting, youthful assistants sporting denim flares, Fair Isle jumpers, and the bubble hairdos of the period. Lunchtime was a communal affair set out on long tables below a wall of enamelled Victorian advertising signs. Meanwhile, Alan immersed himself in ever-larger projects. One project for the Commercial Bank of Kuwait involved him in every aspect of the bank’s visual manifestation: just what he’d always dreamed of. In 1978, Colin Forbes – still with the memory of his tour of Manhattan with the Fletchers back in ’58 – set off like Columbus to the Americas to set up Pentagram New York. And so began Pentagram’s tentative global reach.

The 1980s were a solid period for Alan, who built on his substantial experience in handling major identities and signing projects. He produced a sumptuous book and the signing programme for the then-shiny-new Lloyds of London HQ. Alan also enhanced the IBM Paris offices with new signage and a range of posters and produced the classic V&A identity, which is still going strong. By this time, more partners were embedded in the Pentagram mix, among them graphic designers John McConnell and David Hillman, and a new office was opened in San Francisco. The rich mix of egos and the aromas from Montecristo cigars and Gauloises permeated the new HQ building in Notting Hill. By that time, the design world was changing. A proliferation of new design consultancies appeared, many of whose personnel had passed through Pentagram. These were highly creative and well-organised consultancies, and with them came the digital world, which was about to transform the industry. For the first time, Pentagram found itself in competition with this new breed. And the haphazard economic climate of the time was a worrying factor for everyone.

By this time, Alan had been in the design business for almost four decades. He was bored with corporate clients and disillusioned with the daily complexities of Pentagram. He had begun taking on projects just feed the crew. He wanted out. He wanted more time to play in the studio rather than worry about it.

In 1992, he walked the half-mile journey from Pentagram to his home in Notting Hill Gate. He never went back, leaving behind 25 partners over his period there. But there was one partner he didn’t leave: his wife and life partner, Paola.

From 1992, you’d find Alan sitting in his well-worn Eames office chair amidst an array of his colourful work set out in his pristine, white-walled, immaculate mews studio. Here, he unleashed a torrent of highly personal work. For a while, he virtually abandoned conventional typesetting in favour of his own scratchy handwriting, along with simple, primary-coloured paper. He set about amusing himself, rather than others. He also decided that he would say ‘no’ to uninteresting work and people for the rest of his life. He also embarked on two highly successful books: Beware Wet Paint and The Art of Looking Sideways. Around that time, I interviewed Alan for a magazine and was taken by a menagerie of highly coloured animals made from loo rolls, card, cork and string displayed in his studio. He’d actually made them for his grandson, Tobia, to amuse him while on holiday. But Tobia never got to play with them because Alan liked them so much. They ended up in the 2001 Royal Academy Summer Exhibition.

His final years saw him as busy as ever: consultant art director of Phaidon Press; Domus magazine cover designer; and creative advisor to Novartis, a pharmaceutical conglomerate, for their new research and resource complex in Basel. The latter was an ambitious project that would have taken Alan 30 years to complete. 'I’ll be 101 by then,' he told me dryly.

Well, he never reached that grand old age. On 21 September 2006, he left us, far too early. The image of him that stays in my mind is of Alan on his hands and knees in the gutter, surreptitiously cutting out a choice piece of discarded cardboard to take back to his creative lair to add to one of his many collage pieces.

Alan Fletcher leaves behind an astonishing body of work: work that helped form the foundation of 20th-century British graphics.

© 2026 Mike Dempsey

That’s me above, looking far more serious than I usually feel. And for those who don’t know me, prepare yourselves: this post is gloriously, unashamedly about me. It’s the story of how I stumbled into graphic design and ended up in a decades-long love affair with it, one that refuses to fade, no matter what the calendar insists.

I’m now in my 80s (apparently), though in my head I’m still hovering around 34, usually until I try to get up from a low chair. I’ve been lucky enough to live through the full sweep of creative history: from the reassuring hands-on analogue world, into the blinking neon of digital, and now into the age of AI, which seems determined to move into every room of the house whether invited or not.

Some of you will know that I host the podcast RDInsight, which I started back in 2006; positively prehistoric by internet standards, and it’s still trundling along nicely. I’ve chatted with more than 90 Royal Designers for Industry (RDI), a title bestowed by the RSA on designers who’ve genuinely shaped the world around us.

But in 2022, for the 60th episode, the unthinkable happened: I was the one in the hot seat. For the first time, I had to talk about my life and my work, and it was far more complex than I’d imagined. Safe to say, I was somewhat relieved to grab the microphone back afterwards.

If you fancy a listen, here’s the link: 

https://royaldesignersforindustry.org/resources/rdinsights

Just scroll down, and keep going, until you see my photo and click on the dot.

Before you wander off, here’s a peek at just two of the many clients I was fortunate enough to work with and create for during my thirty years at CDT:

English National Opera (ENO) and the London Chamber Orchestra (LCO).

I adored working with both. Here’s a taste of what we created together, all images shown are mostly from the 1990s decade

In November 2013, I attended the presentation of the Royal Designers for Industry awards. These awards, from London’s Royal Society of Arts, were initiated in 1936 to recognise the contribution that designers make to society and include among their early recipients Eric Gill (1936), Edward McKnight Kauffer (1936), Raymond Loewy (1939) and Susie Cooper (1940). Among the nine designers being honoured in 2013 was Tony Meeuwissen, a man who has spent his entire creative life dedicated to the exacting hand-crafted execution of stunningly original artwork. There is nobody quite like him, and he is still the only designer / illustrator to have won two D&AD Gold Awards in the organisation’s history.

Anthony Peter Meeuwissen was born in Mayday Hospital, Croydon, in 1938, to his eighteen-year-old mother. The unusual surname (pronounced Maywissen) is from his Dutch grandfather, an engineer, a career that Meeuwissen’s father also followed. When Meeuwissen was young, his mother would read aloud nursery rhymes, classic fairy tales and children’s books from the library. He recalls Andersen, Grimm, Babar the Elephant and Struwwelpeter in particular. Aged twelve, he was awarded a place at a grammar school in Egham, but drawing was his real passion, and at sixteen he left school to take up an apprenticeship at Theatre Publicity (later to be absorbed into Rank Screen Services), which was responsible for the advertisements, mostly static slides, between feature films.

At Rank, Meeuwissen worked in both the art and layout departments for six years. Here, he learned to use gouache paints, discovered the beauty of typefaces, and helped develop new graphic ideas. About the same time, he wrote to Gerard Hoffnung, an artist and musician whose cartoons on musical themes were popular in Britain in the 1950s and whose work Meeuwissen greatly admired, having seen it in Lilliput and Punch magazines. Hoffnung replied and invited him to visit his home in Hampstead Garden Suburb, where he was generous with his time and advice, giving Meeuwissen tips on art, books and music. Meeuwissen also became interested in various philosophical movements and individuals, including George Gurdjieff (1866-1949), an influential spiritual teacher of Eastern esotericism.

The apprenticeship at Rank equipped Meeuwissen with basic commercial art skills, and he moved on to a variety of small studios and agencies, ending up in 1965 at Gerald Green Associates (GGA), which was just around the corner from über-trendy Carnaby Street during the height of the Swinging Sixties. It was an agency producing creative ideas for many London advertising agencies, and here Meeuwissen came under the influence of Al Vandenberg, an inspiring creative director and a brilliant reportage photographer. Meeuwissen describes Vandenberg as his only teacher, and he absorbed all he had to say. Vandenberg helped guide Meeuwissen to the next stage of his career by suggesting he visit Michael Wolff at Wolff Olins. Recognising Meeuwissen’s potential, Wolff offered him a job. However, Meeuwissen did not want to sever his connections with GGA completely, so he suggested working alternate weeks at Wolff Olins.

It was through Vandenberg that Meeuwissen was introduced to Michael Cooper, a man at the heart of the 1960s pop scene. He was not only responsible for photographing the cover of The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, but was also instrumental in the cover’s overall concept. In 1967, Meeuwissen was commissioned by Cooper to create a border for The Rolling Stones’ Their Satanic Majesties Request. He painted a psychedelic landscape embracing the four elements of earth, water, air and fire, which appeared on the back cover.

Continuing his freelance quest, Meeuwissen visited Michael Rand, the legendary art director of The Sunday Times colour supplement, and David Pelham, the art director at Penguin Books after Alan Aldridge. Both Rand and Pelham offered Meeuwissen regular work, and so began a 45-year freelance journey.

The individuality of Meeuwissen’s work quickly came to the notice of David Driver, who, in the late 1960s, was the art director of BOAC’s inflight magazine Welcome Aboard. It was a gem of a publication and quickly became the showcase for several illustrators and photographers. Over the coming years, Driver would graduate to the art directorship of Radio Times, and Meeuwissen would become a regular contributor. Another supporter was the designer John Gorham, a man of considerable talent in his own right and a collector of creative collaborators. 

If John thought your work was good, then your work was good.

With a stable band of loyal clients, Meeuwissen soon settled into a mix of commissions from a variety of sources, including editors, publishers and record industry personnel. In 1971, he moved away from the bustle of London to more tranquil surroundings in Wales, together with his first wife and two children, Cate and Jessica. And by 1972, he was in great demand. He had thirteen pieces of work in the D&AD Annual that year and was working for Island Records, Penguin Books, Lloyds Bank, Transatlantic Records, Music Sales, BBC Publications and Kinney Records, for which he won his first D&AD Gold Award. During his period in Wales, he produced his first complete children’s book, The Witch’s Hat. And in 1974, when I was the art director of Fontana Paperbacks, I also regularly commissioned him for book covers, including a C. S. Lewis series.

The Welsh idyll did not last, and in 1976 Meeuwissen’s marriage broke up. He returned to London and found an agent, Nicholas Dawe at Folio, who had already asked him to design their stationery. Dawe negotiated fees and handled Meeuwissen’s commissions, including one from Nicky Bird, the publisher at the Victoria & Albert Museum. Bird asked Meeuwissen to design a new deck of transformation playing cards. The challenge was irresistible, but the project stalled when Bird left the V&A.

When Meeuwissen wanted to continue with the project, his agent, Dawe, provided financial support for two years in return for a 50 per cent share in royalties and ownership of all the original illustrations. The Key to the Kingdom - a set of 53 transformation playing cards and an accompanying book, incorporated passages from nursery rhymes, and these were reflected in Meeuwissen’s ingenious card designs, which brought hearts, diamonds, spades and clubs to mind in a series of witty visual tricks. As well as traditional ditties, the cards featured work from authors such as Ogden Nash, Lewis Carroll, Rudyard Kipling and Hilaire Belloc.

To Meeuwissen’s consternation, the British publisher, Pavilion Books, wanted a prize idea to be woven into the book through a series of clues to be solved. The winner would receive £5000 and a golden key. A similar idea had been done with great success some years earlier with Kit Williams’s book Masquerade. Meeuwissen felt the prize device devalued his project’s integrity. Still, the design fraternity appreciated his efforts, and in 1993, awarded him his second D&AD Gold Award, as well as the W H Smith Illustration Award (now known as the V&A Illustration Award), with a prize of £4000.

Over the years, Meeuwissen has also produced three memorable sets of postage stamps for the Royal Mail. His first was a set of five for Christmas 1983 – one, depicting a dove and a blackbird, representing peace, won the Italian Francobollo d’Oro Award in 1984 for the world’s most beautiful stamp. His second, issued in 1991, was a stunning set of ten stamps based around the concept of ‘good luck’. These stamps formed a complete frieze design. The third set, produced in collaboration with graphic designer Howard Brown, was on the theme of weather. Four stamps were set inside a barometer dial cut into a circle, with the perforated stamps integral to the design. These postage stamps show Meeuwissen’s love of witty symbolism and visual games.

This can also be seen in an advertisement he produced for ICI Continental quilts in 1982, which shows a bedroom full of hatching ducklings. In the detritus around the room, you will find a tiny illustration of his book The Witch’s Hat, tucked away on the windowsill. Meeuwissen’s highly detailed work demonstrates an extraordinary level of craftsmanship. It is produced by hand, without the aid of technology. But the very nature of his pictures means that what might take an illustrator with a loose, immediate style two hours to produce could take Meeuwissen two weeks.

Today, Meeuwissen lives with his second wife, Marie, in Gloucestershire, and each day he prepares the gouache and watercolour paints he has always used and settles into another session of absorbed concentration on his latest project - one he has already been working on for a year. Entitled Purple Emperor (after the butterfly) and due for publication in 2015, it is a book of exotic animals set against whimsical verses. His 2002 book, Remarkable Animals (Frances Lincoln), has just been republished in a large-format hardback edition.

In an age where digital is king, Meeuwissen is an inspiration to anyone wishing to understand the hand-and-eye craft that is being lost. His illustrations continue to educate, illuminate and delight through their breathtaking beauty and unsurpassed skill. His contribution to society is worthy of celebration.

First published in Eye magazine No. 89, vol. 23, 2014.

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