APFEL A Practice for Everyday Life

Press Release, 22 November 2011

BOOK LAUNCH OF ‘DESIGN RESEARCH UNIT 1942 – 72‘ A RETROSPECTIVE OF WORK FROM THE INFLUENTIAL DESIGN STUDIO

Formed in London in 1942, the Design Research Unit was responsible for some of the most important design produced in post-war Britain. They pioneered a model for group practice, being the first consultancy in the country to bring together expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design. By the 1970s they were one of the largest and most established design studios in Europe.

Initially under the charge of the poet and art critic Herbert Read and operating from offices shared with Mass Observation, the Design Research Unit was founded by advertising entrepreneur Marcus Brumwell with designers Misha Black and Milner Gray. Following Read’s essay, Art and Industry (1934) and the literature of International Constructivism the group outlined an intent to combine creative intelligence with technical research into materials and markets, seeking to bring ‘artists and designers into productive relation with scientists and technologists.’

This publication, designed by A Practice for Everyday Life, follows exhibitions at Cubitt Gallery, London; Norwich University College of the Arts Gallery; International Project Space, Bournville; Liverpool John Moores University; Bonington Gallery, Nottingham; the Cooper Gallery, Dundee and Tate St Ives. Based on original research it documents an approach that was shaped by inter-war developments in artistic discourse and post-war trends in industry and communication; in particular the accelerated demand for corporate design.

The seven chapters of the book cover some of the group’s most significant projects, charting their ambition to bring elegant and functional design to all sections of society including Naum Gabo’s designs for a Jowett car (1943 – 6), their work for the Festival of Britain (1951), Watneys brewery (1956 – 70), British Rail (1963 – 6), the London Transport network, photographic company Ilford and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). The publication also features the Piano & Rogers extension for the company’s Aybrook Street offices (1972) that Richard and Su Rogers began working on whilst they were associates of the Design Research Unit (1967 – 71).

The headline typeface APFEL used on the front cover and chapters is Futura Schlagzeile, or Futura Display as it was marketed in the UK. First released in 1932 by Paul Renner, Futura Schlagzeile has a less geometric aesthetic than other cuts of Futura, with angular strokes which result in more rectangular letterforms. The book design and typography references various printed materials from the Design Research Unit and work they did just before the studio formed as DRU. Futura Schlagzeile was prominently used in an advertisement for the services of the Industrial Design Partnership (c.1935), an early collective of which Misha Black and Milner Gray were a part of, and that was a crucial context for the eventual formation of the Design Research Unit. The main body text is set in Monotype Grotesque (re-released in 1925), which was frequently used in earlier studio work before other sans serif typefaces like Univers took over in the 1950s.

The cover is a quotation taken from a leaflet (c.1943) that the studio supplied to prospective clients, along with artists and designers, to outline what they stood for and how their design process worked. The page layouts similarly hold a connection to the ‘identification manuals’ that were created for companies like Watneys and British Rail, which are brilliant engaging objects in their own right. Their designs are quite simple typographically, with comprehensive black and white photography sitting alongside drawn examples of how the brand should work.

The back matter explores the studio further by looking at the people who worked, interned and were associated with Design Research Unit through various ventures, including an illustrated group photograph of the practice in its later years. The publication closes with installation photographs of the touring exhibition at its various locations.

A Practice for Everyday Life Unit 16, 5 Durham Yard Teesdale Street, London, E2 6QF Tel +44 (0)20 7739 9975www.apracticeforeverydaylife.com

A Practice for Everyday Life Ltd is registered in England and Wales. Company Number 7383330. VAT Number 101328666. Directors: Kirsty Carter and Emma Thomas.

APFEL A Practice for Everyday Life

NOTES TO EDITORS:Supported by Cubitt Gallery, Arts Council England, The Graham Foundation, The Henry Moore Foundation and supported by Birmingham City University, John Moores University, Norwich University College of the Arts, Nottingham Trent University, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Scott Brownrigg and Tate St Ives. Sponsored by Courage, Wells and Young’s Brewing Company.

Design Research Unit 1942 – 72 by Michelle CottonSoftback, 128pp, 151 illustrations, colour, black & whiteISBN: 978 – 3 – 86335 – 040 – 6Designed by A Practice for Everyday LifePublished by Koenig Books£ 16.95 (Special launch price £ 12)

A PRACTICE FOR EVERYDAY LIFE:A Practice for Everyday Life (APFEL) is a London design agency working with some of the world’s leading brands, companies, institutions and individuals, particularly recognised for the excellence of its creative typography skills. They have a thoughtful and rational approach to design, which has established the studio a reputation for deceptively simple and successful projects. Their work is explorative, investigative, and they produce design from concept to creation. A Practice for Everyday Life frequently collaborate with excellent architects, curators, creative directors and photographers. The members of APFEL are able to draw on a wide range of talents and diverse backgrounds, including graphic design, history of art, architecture and interior design. Arts clients include Architects’ Journal, Art Dubai, British Council, Hayward Gallery, ICA Boston, Tate Modern & Britain, Turner Prize, Victoria & Albert Museum.

For further information on the use of pictures / samples of printed materials / interviews contact:Kirsty CarterMob +44 (0)77 8751 4237Tel +44 (0)20 7739 9975www.apracticeforeverydaylife.comk@apracticeforeverydaylife.com

Cover

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he designed displays for exhibitions such as For Liberty, which was mounted in John Lewis’s wartime canteen.25

The Design Research Unit followed a series of artistic groups and societies that Black and Gray initiated or became active within: The Society of Industrial Artists, for example, a precursor to the Chartered Society of Designers, was formed by Gray in Ye Olde Cock Tavern on Fleet Street in 1929.26 Black was part of the Modern Architectural Research Society (MARS), another initiative begun in 1933 by architects and critics including Wells Coates, Berthold Lubetkin, Maxwell Fry, John Betjeman and Morton Shand. He became secretary to the group in 1935 and was later charged by the artist László Moholy-Nagy with the task of organising their most important exhibition, The New Architecture, held at the New Burlington Galleries in London in 1938.27 Each of these organisations united various creative disciplines. In addition to providing a forum for artistic or professional debate, such groups served to collectively identify individuals seeking recognition for new categories of work, such as design.

These various groups and societies represent an important context for the formation of DRU. They demonstrate the breadth of the founder members’ interests and their self-identification with a generation that saw how society could, in the future, be radically redefined by the developments taking place in science and the creative fields of art and design. This philosophy, and its broader social aims, finds distinct expressions within the exhibitions of AIA or the writing or publishing interests of the founding group. It was during this period that Read most consistently aligned the subject of art with his political interests through his Freedom Press titles, and others such as Essential Communism, 1935, Poetry and Anarchism, 1938, To Hell with Culture: Democratic Values are New Values, 1941 and The Politics of the Unpolitical, 1943.28 Brumwell captured the spirit of the age in a series of essays selected from various issues of his magazine World Review for an anthology entitled This Changing World, 1945. Introducing contributions from ‘leading thinkers’ including Read, Lewis Mumford and the scientists Joseph Needham and John Desmond Bernal, Brumwell wrote:

much of modern art, music, poetry, architecture, seems not merely a development of what has gone before, but a revolution and, to the ordinary man, ‘queer’. So it goes through the whole range of human experience. Who will deny that modern war, politics, sociology, communication, transport, almost all departments of life and thought tend to have changed not only in degree but in kind since the last century? Change is nothing new in world history, but the modern speed of change is the point.29

Industrial Design Partnership advertisement, c.1935. IDP was formed by six partners from the Bassett Gray group in 1935: Misha Black, Jessie Collins, Milner Gray, Thomas Gray, James de Holden Stone and Walter Landauer (who later changed his name to Landor). Associated artists and technicians included Paul Drury, Clive Gardiner, E. F. Herbert, Rowland Hilder, E. B. Hoyton, John Mansbridge, Graham Sutherland and F. F. P. Walsh. It was disbanded at the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939

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In 1964 Misha Black was appointed as a design consultant to the London Transport Executive, responsible for all aspects of design for the Victoria Line. The 14 mile long tube connecting 16 stations was the first underground railway to be built in the centre of London for sixty years. When it opened in 1968 it was believed to be the most advanced underground railway in the world

A frieze at the top of the platform wall repeats the name of the station so it can be easily identified by passengers when the platforms are crowded, c.1968

Computer-controlled trains were introduced to make services more regular and uniform, ensure energy efficiency and reduce staff costs (trains could be driven by one operator instead of two). Made with unpainted aluminium bodies, they were designed to be lightweight and keep running and maintenance costs to a minimum, c.1968 (photo: Heinz Zinram, © TFL from the London Transport Museum Collection)

Ceramic tile murals referring to the station name or its locality were commissioned for station platforms. Murals for Tottenham Hale, Highbury and Islington, and Victoria were designed by Edward Bawden and the mural for Stockwell was designed by Abram Games. The William Morris pattern mural for Walthamstow Central was devised by Julia Black, Misha Black’s daughter. This mural at Euston is a Tom Eckersley design, c.1968

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pp.86–87

pp.18–19

pp.90–91

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The ICI trademark was modifi ed from the original mark as part of the corporate identity design programme devised by Ronald Armstrong and Milner Gray, c.1969

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‘ICI Orange’ was designated the ‘accent colour’ and Helvetica was adopted as the standard ICI alphabet for general use on stationery, company printing and signs. A range of pictograms were designed for warning and information signs