A tribute to Alan Fletcher Pioneer of British Graphic Design

Born September 27, 1931
Died September 21, 2006

Where to start…
There is nobody, and probably will never be anybody quite like Alan Fletcher in the design industry, one
of the all time greats without the superstar ego; of
a golden generation of creatives who managed to combine a renegade approach with charm and professionalism.

Jeremy Myerson’s words sum this up best:

Alan Fletcher belongs to that élite international group
of designers who have transcended the conventional boundaries of their craft. In a long and distinguished career, he has tackled every facet of design – from corporate identities to posters – with a style and purpose that has marked him out as one of the most admired designers of his generation.
There is perhaps nobody else who inhabits the world
of ideas and ironies, of wit and ambiguity in graphic design in quite the same way. Thus he has been depicted as the man who took all that serious
less-is-more, form-follows-function dogma and
somehow found a way to, well, relax.
Jeremy Myerson 1996

Alan was always an active member of ISTD, a Fellow since 1983. I admired Alan not only for his amazing body of work, but for his ability to depict the essence
of a subject with a few swift well placed lines; for his economy of words; and most of all for his humour.
He always responded in the positive when asked
to take part, a true professional – it was an honour
to work with him – everyone in ISTD and the design industry will miss him greatly.

He holds a special place for me – because with Alan you can’t separate respect from true feeling, intuition and emotion – all are centrally apparent in his body
of work too great to list – there will be plenty of tributes that will do this of course. I will remember him as the fascinating man of the trademark black fedora, with an amazing capacity for work, unique ideas, and the ability to cut through plethora with a keenness of wit and economy of words that at first terrified me, and then endeared me, as I realized that although an undisputed ‘design icon’ he wasn’t too grand to respond to my requests to be part of this or that event organized during my time as ISTD Chair and now as President.

A web search proves that he would always find time for good causes – generous to contribute his inimitable talent – the taking part being a ‘proper’ response.

When he faxed through a reply to an invitation to take part in ISTD’s 26 Letter’s 2004 London Design Festival project – I was convinced it was a ‘thanks but no thanks’ however with his renowned economy of words and dry sense of humour, he had sketched in large capitals:
F
OK
A

Alan’s diary for the same project was just as enigmatic:
‘We were asked to keep a diary ‘as a written record of the process of creating the poster.’ That’s a word-led request. So I’ve passed it on to my writer collaborator. My diary is visual. A collection of correspondence, notes, images and scribbles. A potential collage rather than a sequence of sentences. I don ’t think in a step-by-step fashion, or string things together like beads.
I shuffle in backwards and look around’.

Jamie Jauncy his writer partner on the 26 letters project had similar thoughts about Alan’s ‘sideways’ approach:

‘Gruff of voice and sparing of word, Alan is the only person I have known who, when asked if that is Alan
at the other end of the line, can reply: “Possibly’‘.
His preferred method of communicating was by hand written/illustrated fax.
He faxed me a sheet of Qs, crowded and jostling, like birds in cage. I wanted to hear them squawk and screech and whistle and sing. I wrote a lot of words (too many) about this multitude. Alan had in mind just one. From my gabble he plucked quorum. We had coined a new collective noun. A quorum of Qs.’

26 Letters: Illuminating the Alphabet

Unusually he at first turned down the 2006 project invitation – but no ISTD exhibition would be complete without his work – and he readily agreed to supply
the suggested ‘one I made earlier’, and like the true professional he always was, organized through his
PA Sarah to provide a work, that was the perfect fit
for the theme, My London, My City, on time and with requested background information.
It was typical of the persona that his supplied biog (Myerson’s words above) was a picture of the man,
not a list of awards and achievements.

Each designer taking part in My London, My City was asked to answer twenty questions about their relationship with London.

Date: Monday, August 21, 2006 11:40
From: Alan Fletcher
To: Freda Sack
Conversation: ISTD and City Inn invite you...

Dear Freda

Please see the following for Alan¹s response.

Regards
Sarah


He had titled them with my requested preferred method of response,

'Off the cuff'

that had obviously appealed to his own approach to such matters.

Alan's answers provide a very personal picture of the man behind ‘the icon’, indeed a true Londoner

For those of you who want more insight into the man, read Alan Fletcher's The Art of Looking Sideways, termed ‘the ultimate guide to visual awareness’, an exploration of the workings of the eye, the hand, the brain and the imagination. In Alan’s own words, the book is ‘a journey without a destination’, where his prodigious ingenuity employs drawing, lettering, collage, and typography, to demonstrate the expressive use of type, space, colour and imagery.
The book is entertaining and inspiring and a delight
to all of us who appreciate the interplay between word
and image

‘Design’, said Fletcher, ‘is what happens between conceiving an idea and carrying it out, an intelligent equation between purpose and construction.’ He firmly linked intention to function, but with Alan’s work design always included an element of the intuitive.

Alan’s work, spanning 40 years, retains a purity of design and freshness of approach that will inspire future young designers.

What remains for me is, a ’smile in the mind’.

Freda Sack
President ISTD

The essential facts: Alan Fletcher had a unique approach that made him one of the most influential designers in Britain.
A founder of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill in the 1960s, and founding partner of Pentagram in the 1970s, Fletcher helped to create a new breed of design practice, the commercial partnership with creative independence. He developed some of the most memorable graphics of the era, notably the identities of Reuters and the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Born in Kenya 1931, Fletcher arrived in London as a five year-old, and was bought up by his mother and grandparents in Shepherds Bush. After boarding school during the war years he managed to escape the usual middle class mores, through art school education in the 1950s, attending the Central School (as a contemporary of, amongst others, Colin Forbes, Theo Crosby, Derek Birdsall and Ken Garland). He won
a scholarship to the Royal College, which led on to a place at Yale, where he was taught by such greats
as Paul Rand and Josef Albers. On his way back to Europe he worked with Saul Bass in LA and for Pirelli in Italy.

Back in London he set up with Central friend Colin Forbes, and Bob Gill from USA to form the renowned design group Fletcher/Forbes/Gill. Their work was typified by a unique blend of type and image not experienced before in British graphic design.
In 1963, Fletcher and several of his colleagues started the Design and Art Directors’ Association – known
as D&AD. Bob Gill left Fletcher/Forbes/Gill in 1965,
and with architect Theo Crosby the practice became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. The group was estabilshed
as Pentagram after Mervyn Kurlansky, and product designer Kenneth Grange joined respectively, in the late 60s and early 70s. Fletcher eventually left in 1991 to work from his own studio in Notting Hill, and as creative design consultant to publishers Phaidon.

Alan Fletcher received gold awards from D&AD and
the New York 'One Show'. In 1977 Fletcher and Forbes
shared the D&AD President's Award for outstanding contributions to design. The Society of Industrial Artists and Designers awarded him their Annual Medal for outstanding achievement in design in 1982, and in 1993 he was awarded The Prince Philip Prize for the Designer of the Year.

He served as President of the D&AD in 1973, and President of the Alliance Graphique Internationale from 1982–85. He was made a Royal Designer for Industry in 1972, was a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Designers, a Fellow of the International Society of Typographic Designers, a Senior Fellow of the Royal College of Art and Senior Fellow of The London Institute. In 1994 he was elected to the 'Hall of Fame' of the American Art Directors club. Prior to his death last week, Alan was due to receive Honorary Fellowship of ISTD.