Tom Eckersley was born in Lowton, Lancashire, in 1914 and studied at Salford School of Art, where he met Eric Lombers. The two moved to London in 1934 and set up the Eckersley-Lombers partnership. Within a year they had their first commission from London Transport, and work followed for Shell-Mex and BP, the BBC, the General Post Office and many other leading companies.
Eckersley also independently designed posters for clients including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents and the GPO. He was appointed OBE in 1948 for services to poster design and became a member of the Alliance Graphique Internationale in 1952. He was made a Royal Designer for Industry in 1963 and was a Fellow of the Society of Industrial Artists and Designers. Alongside his practice, he was a teacher. He was Head of the Department of Design at the London College of Printing from 1957 to 1977, where he set up Britain’s first undergraduate course in graphic design and shaped a generation of British graphic designers.
