ALAN FLETCHER HAS A NEW STUDIO . . . .
Alan Fletcher
Alan Fletcher [Designer]: ALAN FLETCHER HAS A NEW STUDIO . . . . London: Alan Fletcher [1959]. Original edition. Announcement card printed in two-colors [recto only]. Typed address card to Gene Federico. Glassine envelope with cancelled postage dated 9 July, 1959. Glassine envelope with penciled address correction and expected wear from Transatlantic Post, otherwise a fine fresh example with an excellent Association provenance. Rare.
7.75x 4.75 announcement card printed in two colors: “Alan Fletcher has a new studio at 63a Montagu Square London W1 Ambassador 9198.”
Excerpted from Fletcher's biography on the web site for the Design Museum: "Alan Fletcher is one of the most influential figures in post-war British graphic design. The fusion of the cerebral European tradition with North America’s emerging pop culture in the formulation of his distinct approach made him a pioneer of independent graphic design in Britain during the late 1950s and 1960s. As a founding partner of Pentagram in the 1970s, Fletcher helped to establish a model of combining commercial partnership with creative independence. He also developed some of the most memorable graphic schemes of the era, notably the identities of Reuters and the Victoria & Albert Museum, and made his mark on book design as creative director of Phaidon.
In 1991, Fletcher decided to leave Pentagram. Several of his important clients withdrew their business during the recession . . . . At the same time, Fletcher was becoming increasingly disenchanted with the schedule of corporate design. He felt caught in a cycle of taking on assistants to complete large projects and then needing to take on more of those same kinds of projects feed these new employees. In his own words he 'closed my eyes and jumped', selling off his share of the company and establishing a studio in a mews house that abuts his home in Notting Hill."
England was ablaze with creative activity in the early Sixties. Before our very eyes and ears The Beatles were transmogrified from a funky Liverpool group into an international musical life force. The satiric revue "Beyond the Fringe" launched Jonathan Miller, Alan Bennett, Dudley Moore and Peter Cook as comics and social critics. Mary Quant was influencing the way women designed themselves. And you’d better believe that Graphic design was part of the cultural explosion, and Fletcher, Forbes and Gill were at the forefront.
In the early Sixties, Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes formalized their working relationship with American graphic designer Bob Gill, and Fletcher/Forbes/Gill was born. They pooled their clients, rented a studio in a mews house off Baker Street and became the most fashionable designers in town -- their avant-garde fusion of type and image was unprecedented in the rather stuffy confines of British graphic design. Praised within London’s fledgling design community, Fletcher, Forbes and Gill were among the first graphic designers to make their mark outside it – notably being featured in Vogue magazine – and admiring clients clamoured for their services.
In 1965 Fletcher/Forbes/Gill became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes, when Bob Gill left and the architect Theo Crosby arrived. The impetus for Crosby’s arrival was a design project for Shell, which Fletcher and Forbes hoped to extend from corporate identity into the structure of garage forecourt. The Shell project, as well as the 1965 Triennale in Milan led the architect and the three graphic designers to join forces. "Whoever needed a letterhead or a brochure," Forbes said, "probably had an office, shop or showroom. Whoever wanted new offices probably needed mailing pieces."
Like an ever-expanding amoeba Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes added Mervyn Kurlansky and Kenneth Grange to the masthead and eventually rechristened themselves 'Pentagram.' You might have heard of them.