BOB GILL'S NEW YORK

First edition. Publisher's metallic card covers printed in red. 16 pages, unpaginated. Illustrated with folding plates in colour throughout. Publisher's information printed in black on a single brown paper sheet, loosely laid in, as issued. A very good copy, the binding firm with a little rubbing, bumping and creasing to the extremities. The contents are clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. The second in the series of quarterly graphic design essays printed and published by The Kynoch Press in co-operation with the Desingers and Art Directors Association of London. Scarce.

Bob Gill (born 1931, Brooklyn, NY) studied at the Philadelphia Museum School of Art and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts before launching a freelance career in New York. His early work included illustrations for Esquire, Architectural Forum, Fortune, Seventeen, The Nation, as well as children's books and film titles. In 1955, he received a New York Art Directors Club Gold Medal for a CBS television title. In 1960, Gill moved to London to work for the advertising agency Charles Hobson. There, he joined forces with Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes to form Fletcher / Forbes / Gill, an influential studio that would later help lay the groundwork for Pentagram. The early 1960s in England were a period of extraordinary creative energy. The Beatles were rapidly transforming from a Liverpool band into a global cultural force. The satirical revue Beyond the Fringe introduced Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore, and Peter Cook as sharp-witted social commentators. Designer Mary Quant was redefining fashion and modern femininity. Graphic design, too, was part of this cultural surge, and Fletcher / Forbes / Gill stood at its leading edge. Working from a mews studio off Baker Street, the trio developed a bold, avant-garde approach that fused typography and image in ways largely unseen in the traditionally conservative British design scene. Their work quickly gained attention beyond the design community, including features in Vogue, and they soon attracted a growing list of high-profile clients. In 1965, Gill left the partnership, which was restructured as Crosby / Fletcher / Forbes with the addition of architect Theo Crosby. Gill later returned to New York, where his work spanned disciplines: he designed a proposed peace monument for Times Square, directed the film 'The Double Exposure of Holly', and collaborated with Robert Rabinowitz on the multimedia musical Beatlemania, which ran on Broadway for three years. Throughout his career, Gill championed a direct, idea-driven approach to design. As he wrote in 1981 "Drawing (illustration) is just like design. It's a process, a means, not an end. Both are ways of making statements. So unless you have a specific point of view about something, don't even begin the process". In 1999, he was awarded the British D&AD President's Award.