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Designer Profile: Ken Garland

Ken was born in 1929, in Southampton and grew up in a small market town in North Devon. He was a principled man, with strong values and views against the hyper-consumerism we live with today. Ken studied at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts in the 1950s and was taught by Herbert Spencer, Anthony Froshaug and Jesse Collins. Whilst at the School he studied alongside designers Ken Briggs, Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes.
Ken Garland Photograph: Unit Editions
Ken Garland
Photograph: Unit Editions

Ken was born in 1929, in Southampton and grew up in a small market town in North Devon. He was a principled man, with strong values and views against the hyper-consumerism we live with today. Ken studied at the London Central School of Arts and Crafts in the 1950s and was taught by Herbert Spencer, Anthony Froshaug and Jesse Collins. Whilst at the School he studied alongside designers Ken Briggs, Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes.

He launched his design agency Ken Garland Associates in the early 60s in Camden and worked and lived there for over half a century. Their longest client retainer lasted 20 years, this was for James Galt and Company. He produced a range of design from magazine covers for Design, published by the Council of Industrial Design, posters for CND to packaging design for Galt Toys.

Articles on the web

AGI: http://2017.agi-congress.com/speakers/ken-garland

From CND to Hollywood: the ruthlessly brilliant designs of Ken Garland: https://www.theguardian.com/
artanddesign/2020/sep/07/ken-garland-graphic-designer-cnd-manifesto-hollywood

Unit Editions: Ken Garland book — free to download as a PDF

Eye Magazine: Articles about Ken Garland

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Rudolph de Harak designed over 50 record covers for Westminster Records as well as designing covers for Columbia, Oxford and Circle record labels. His bright, geometric graphics can easily be distinguished and recognised.

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The typographic designs produced for the National Theatre by Ken Briggs are not only iconic and depict the Swiss typographic style of the time, but remain a key example of the creation of a cohesive brand style.

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I first came across Kens work in the Unit Edition’s superb monograph, Structure and Substance, published in 2012. Although I had owned a few of the British industrial design magazines, Design, for a few years before, in which Ken had designed numerous covers for.
In the ambitious new monograph Rational Simplicity: Rudolph de Harak, Graphic Designer, Volume shines a light on the complete arc of the exceptionally rich and varied career of Rudolph de Harak, showcasing his vibrant, graphic, formally brilliant work, which blazed a colourful trail through the middle decades of the twentieth century.
Gabriel sent me a link to his amazing Uruguayan Graphic Design Archive when I launched Design Reviewed. The content was so amazing, I ended up spending a good hour looking through the content and it has definitely made it to my bookmarks.
A new online archive makes the complete works of the famous graphic designer accessible
This book shows, for the first time, all of Hans Hillmann’s film posters. Unpublished sketches and drafts from his estate along with commentary from conversations and interviews provide an insight into the creative process of the award-winning designer.
In the late 1960s, IBM was one of the world’s pre-eminent corporations, employing over 250,000 people in 100 countries. While Paul Rand’s creative genius has been well documented, the work of the IBM staff designers who executed his intent outlined in the IBM Design Guide has often gone unnoticed.