In design every career there comes those break-through moments; for me there were three in as many months – 1984 was an amazing year!
In July of that year I received my degree in Graphic Design and Typography from Exeter College of Art and Design. Secondly, my external examination assessor, Brian Sanders, liked my final degree show.
I began working as a designer when I was still at school. I used to love sauntering into WH Smiths with my friends and see my covers on the shelves and I still get that same thrill seeing my work in shops 43 years on. How I came to be designing puzzle book covers is as odd as it is satisfying…
My father was obsessed with The Telegraph cryptic crossword and one compiler in particular, Colin Parsons, was his nemesis. After finally completing one of Colin’s crosswords, in his great excitement, or relief, my father dashed off a letter of victory. Weirdly and despite, I’m sure, receiving other fan mail, Colin wrote back and so started a long correspondence.
In the cheerless Autumn term of 1979 the Head of Art at my school, David Willacy, called me into his office to inform me, in his bluff Cumbrian tones, that Robert Runcie, the then Bishop of St Albans, wanted to talk to me about a drawing and I was to go to the Bishop’s Palace straightaway.
How did that happen?
The other day I worked out that I have been working in publishing for over 40 years. My career to date has been over a period of rapid and seismic shifts in print and graphic design, of digital processes and, oh yes, the battleground of today’s content, the Internet.