Abram Games: Talk from Naomi Games

I was extremely excited to discover that the daughter (Naomi Games) of one of my all time favourite designers, Abram Games, was coming to present to us the work and story of her father. I've long-appreciated his work, and had already been to see the exhibition that Naomi had curated in Sheffield last year, so was eager to discover more about Abram, especially from someone with such a close connection to him.

Abram Games first learned about being creative from watching his father, who was a photographer, at work. It was here that he was first introduced to the most influential tool of his career - the air brush, which his father would use to touch up and add colour to the slides he had taken. At 15, Games left school with the desire of becoming a poster designer; yet his head teacher dismissed this by saying he would never make it. Little did he know...

Games went on to produce some of Britain's most iconic poster designs and, in 1942, was appointed as the only ever official war poster artist. According to Naomi, his posters told the truth; which hadn't been done before, and yet many couldn't handle these truths. This led to some of his designs being discontinued and banned. A great example of this is his famous "ATS" poster from 1942, more commonly described as the "blonde bombshell". This beautiful poster was banned due to concerns that it was far too risqué for a British audience, and perceived the Auxiliary Territorial Service woman as more of a sexual object than as a persuasive tool. 

It was really lovely to be able to see Games' work from a more personal standpoint, however I was a little disappointed with the overall atmosphere of the talk. Naomi was clearly very proud of her father and his achievements but the talked seemed less of a personal insight than I was anticipating, causing it to feel a little forced and lack-lustre. This was probably due to the fact that she has done countless talks similar to the one we were involved in, but I still felt a little disappointed that she didn't go further in depth into Abram's design approaches.


Despite this, the lecture was still quite inspiring and I discovered a lot more about Abram that I hadn't previously known. His work is truly beautiful and it is clear that a lot of time and skill went into producing his designs. He was definitely passionate about what he did, which was apparent from the advice he would give to his students: Always remember the '3C's': curiosity, concentration, and courage. I find the last two particularly difficult areas to get to grips with when approaching my own work, so it was encouraging to hear it from one of my favourite designers! 

Bradford Beer Festival

The same weekend I went to the Henry Moore exhibition, I also attended the annual Bradford Beer Festival, held at Saltaire's Victoria Hall. It's a pretty impressive venue, and even though I am not the biggest ale fan (I was coerced into going by my boyfriend) I was excited to get there. The set up was huge - 2 large rooms with 3 long bars, each containing probably 30 different ales each. I soon got into the spirit of things, and certainly had a knack of choosing some good beers (I have clearly learnt more from my Dad than I thought I had). There was a live band, and it was a lovely, friendly evening.

The highlight for me however, was not the beer (strangely) but a little stall I discovered upstairs, which was selling a vast array of beer-related ephemera. There were posters, postcards and wall mountings displaying some really beautiful designs, I was exceptionally happy to discover one by A. M. Cassandre too, who is one of my favourite designers. I ended up spending more money here than I actually did on the beer, but I love the designs from this era (early - mid 20th century). Here is a selection of what I saw:

Graphic Nothing.

Some amazing work by Graphic Nothing; a Manchester-based designer. His posters are created using the Fibonacci sequence and the Golden Ratio. I really love his work, it is bold and interesting with a very complex concept behind them, yet the designs are all minimal. I would love to have these on my wall!

Fibonacci numbers used to produce colour values.

Segment size related back to the numbers in the sequence.

Triangle tessellation created through following the sequence.

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.

Film Season Posters

These are my final designs for my art house film season "CONTRA". The season celebrates the work of Julian Schnabel, who has spent his life pushing the limits of painting and crossing artistic boundaries as an award-winning film maker. 

Basquiat (1997)

Before Night Falls (2000)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly (2007)

Miral (2010)