A PRIMER FOR COMMERCIAL CHILDREN
Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes [Theo Crosby, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes]
Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes [Theo Crosby, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes]: A PRIMER FOR COMMERCIAL CHILDREN. London: Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes, [n. d., c. 1968]. Original edition. Slim square quarto. Printed stapled self wrappers. 28 pp. Black and white illustrations. Includes a separate Printed card titled Happy Christmas And A Viable New Year with staff listing, including Mervyn Kerlansky. Enclosed in original custom-designed mailing envelope with cancelled postage addressed to Gene Federico. Envelope with expected [minimal] wear from Transatlantic Post, otherwise a fine fresh example with an excellent Association provenance. Rare.
4.75 x 4.75 stapled self-promotional booklet with 28 pages of Alphabet and Logo comparisons: Z [Zenith Radio Corp.] = Zebra [Zebra Paperbacks]; etc.
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.