Pentagram at the Design Museum: Review

Down to the Design Museum last night for the Pentagram talk. It was good, very good.

Introduced by Emily King who curated the Fletcher show. The talk clumsily straddled discussing Fletcher himself and discussing how Fletcher influenced the speakers. Obviously some of the audience just wanted to hear about Fletcher and others just about Pentagram. Of the speakers, Scher easily handled this the best.

Scher kicked off the talk by giving us a lightening run down of the Pentagram partners through the years. Her 'Family of Men' diagram in pictured in the Profile: Pentagram Design book and makes interesting reading. Hard to believe now that Saville was once a partner.

The three partners (John Rushworth, Paula Scher and Harry Pearce) then spoke in what seemed like an order dictated by chronological order of meeting Fletcher. Which was sort of reflected in how they felt about him. From Rushworth who sort of considered him more of a contemporary, to Pearce to whom he was more of a hero. Scher was somewhere in the middle and probably the most interesting speaker because of this.

I like Rushworth's work (especially this for Pantone and this for the Waterways Trust) but he was the speaker I liked the least. I suppose it comes back to bridging the 'Flecther's work / my work thing'. He did remind us all of Fletcher's brilliant quote, "Stroking a cliché until it purrs like a metaphor".

As I've said Scher handled the brief the best. For example, she mentioned how much she loved these gates and how that had made her realise that typography could become architecture.

She then showed us some great, dramtic work inside Bloomberg and of course this.

Do you see what I mean about the 'Flecther's work / my work thing'? Scher made lots of nice little connections like that.

She told us how Fletcher (and his personal work) had inspired her to keep doing personal work and how he had pushed these wonderful maps.

Harry Pearce has just become a Pentagram partner and didn't seem to show much work.

He had lots of charming tales about Fletcher, especially the one about the flip flops, I love that. One summer Pearce turned up at Fletcher's house. It was a hot day and Pearce was wearing flip flops. The first thing Fletcher said, before hello, was 'Fuck. Your shoes have fallen off'. Brilliant.

I don't know if Pearce wasn't allowed to show previous work (I doubt it) or if he didn't feel it was appropriate (he shouldn't have worried) but he kept showing these little word puns.

They're very nice and everything, but I found them a bit, dunno, lightweight? What do you think? This one is Freudian Slip. Clever? Stroking a cliché until it purrs like a metaphor?

Pearce also showed these photographs of signs which are great. Really good fun.

Again there was a great story attached. Pearce had taken two photographs (the other being AVENUE ROAD) and he showed them to Fletcher one day. Fletcher loved them and encouraged Pearce to go and take some more. Which he didn't. Fletcher kept asking about the photos and Pearce would reply that they were coming along fine.

When he was wrting Smile In The Mind Fletcher rang Pearce and asked for all the photographs he'd been collecting. Pearce revealed the truth - he only had the original two. Well, replied Fletcher, in that case you've got 3 weeks to get a double page spreads worth.

I'm never sure what I think about Lippa Pearce, and now Harry Pearce and Domninic Lippa. They've always done great work but there's something I can't but my fingers on. Whilst the puns left me a little cold, this poster by Pearce is one of the best bits of graphic design in the last 10 years.

Powerful, simple, dramatic, clever and touching. The image is perfect, the typography is spot on, the message is clear and the effect is stunning.

Anyway. Afterwards there were questions. I've said it before and I'll say it again. A question is usually a sentence followed by a question mark, Not a long rambling paragraph wihich ends in a CV. Stand up Nico.

There were only three questions, one by Nico and two by us. Did no-one else have any questions? Really? Miserable fuckers.

I asked why Pentagram's obviously successful structure hadn't been copied by more design firms?

Rushworth answered that money was the main factor. In effect existing partners let new partners join an already successful company without any goodwill payment which would be an anathema to most businessmen.

Abbott Miller, Lisa Strausfeld and (I think) Domenic Lippa were also in the audience. Strausfeld said that a company called Base Design (anyone heard of them?) had the same structure.

Scher thought that many partners makes for better decision making. Traditional firms with two or three partners can often spend their time fighting against each other. More partners equals more democracy and more equality. She said she thought 5 partners was a good number for a design consultancy which was hilarious as we have 5 equal partners. We thought it was hilarious anyway, not sure anyone else in the audience did.

And that was it.

Good, very good. But then I expected it to be. I suspect the D&AD one will be very different and I hope there are more questions.

Comments

[Kieren Messenger]

Ho hum... I had a feeling it was you guys who were sitting in the 2nd row! I ended up having to stand at the back as a combination of train delays and misplaced tickets left me 15 minutes late.

I really enjoyed the talk however I got a sense that they were quite content to be in a situation where they were looking backwards or sideways at Alan's work and influence, rather then using it to move forward and progress.

Admittedly I showed a wry smile when Nico posed his questions. Partly as it took a good part of the session to ask them all and partly as they seemed to dodge the 2nd and 3rd questions posed.

The questions were:
1. How do you view design in an art vs. service context?
2. What do you think of interactive/kiosk design?
3. What do you think of experience/environment design?

Naturally they are graphic designers first, but it would have been interesting to see what a company that has outlasted plenty of design trends made of the latest ones.

Overall very enjoyable, with the book putting the icing on the cake.

[Luis Vazquez]

I visited the Pentagram NY office for a studio talk and tour a couple of years ago. I didn't get to ask anything, but just seeing their work spaces and overall enviornment was amazing.

[Erik Larsson]

Base is a belgium company, they have offices in Barcelona, NYC and some other places. Didn't know they applied the same structure. Thanks for the review!

[davidthedesigner]

Dig the Base website http://www.basedesign.com/sections/studios

(I think I'll still aspire to Pentagram though.)

[Brad Brooks]

Did anyone tape this? Please?

[Kevin]

Great writeup, now I'm really looking forward to D&AD! Not only that but how cool it must be to mentioned on the Pentagram blog:

http://blog.pentagram.com/archives/2007/02/feedback_feedback.php

[gestibar]

nice :)
;))

[andrew]

a}I did a fair bit of illustration work for john rushworth on a unhcr project a few years back and he was really good to work for. A little nudge here and there, but pretty much left to get on with it.
b}I've been to so many lectures where it's been the same voices-one of them mine-asking a question, and I always want to know why no one else pipes up. Shy? Scared? What of?
c}I like the questions that don't last longer than the answer. And keep them open: "Could you tell us a little more about..."

[andrew]

Is not asking questions at a talk a bit like reading someone's blog without posting a comment?
ps I'll shut up now-4 comments in a row is pushing it a bit, i know.

[maaike]

Thanks for the review, sounds like it was very interesting. I love that Waterways logo, but I'm not impressed with those word puns either. They're the kind of things we did in art school, in the second year or so.