Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means

Earlier this month I visited an exhibition of work by Abram Games, one of the twentieth century's most influential graphic designers. For over 60 years he produced some of Britain's most iconic images, for instance the "Blonde Bombshell" ATS poster of 1941, below.

I was really impressed with the body of work Games has produced during his career. His clients included London Transport, The Financial Times, The United Nations, Guinness and Shell. His influence even reached the infant television service in 1953 when he created the first moving BBC on-screen symbol. He created 100 posters during his role as Official War Poster Artist.

Games used a lot of clever and interesting devices in his work, for instance when signing his pieces he would sometimes incorporate elements of his designs in his signatures, as apparent in the poster he designed for Guinness, below.

Another feature of the exhibition I enjoyed was being able to see the sketches and developments he created when designing his posters. Games fervently documented every idea he came up with, creating hundreds of tiny thumbnails for each poster he designed, in order to aid his development. He sustained that if the design worked small-scale then it would work when placed into the public eye, because it is how you would initially view his posters; in small scale from afar. This is a habit I need to put into practise myself, as I often find myself rushing straight to the computer when creating my initial ideas. I think it would help my work greatly if I were to sketch all my rough plans out first and allow the pen and paper to develop the ideas that are in my head.