THE PRESENT
Fletcher/Forbes/Gill
Fletcher/Forbes/Gill [Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, Bob Gill]: THE PRESENT. London: Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, Ltd., Christmas 1963. First edition [limited to 200 hand-numbered copies]. Square quarto. Plain stapled wrappers. Printed dust jacket. 32 pp. Text and color illustrations. Hand-numbered '86' of a limited edition of 200 copies. SIGNED by Alan, Colin and Bob on limitation page. 1-inch circular stain/abrasion to front panel of jacket, otherwise a fine copy. Rare. 7.75 x 7.75 stapled booklet in jacket with 32 pages of text and artwork beautifully realized by Planet Display, Ltd.
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.
A sample spread from this volume can be viewed here.
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