WORKING IN THE THIRTIES - THE INDIVIDUAL AND THE GROUP

Several of the designers in this period worked on their own. Sometimes I’d get somebody in to do a bit of donkey work, a student perhaps. Kauffer’s studio was in his own home. He did have one assistant. Schleger worked on his own. We despised what was being done in the big commercial studios. One didn’t want to have anything to do with them.  They were an anathema. Work you admired was coming from individuals.

The generation of Newbould, Horace Taylor and Tom Purvis never really appealed to me in the way Kauffer did. I felt that they had something of a rigid formula, very skillfully done but not experimental. Yes Purvis did some beautiful things. Recently I have gone back to their work and enjoyed their solutions, but not at the time. Kauffer was always suprising people. Did he ever use a photograph?

First thing in the morning I would ease myself into my own work space, having an early look at something you’d been doing was very useful. You saw it with a new eye every morning. I worked late if I wanted to, not the same if I were working at a desk in a company. I make terrible mistakes and could see them in my own studio the next day.

I do feel sorry for students today, coming into the studios at school. They sometimes stay away when criticised. At Salford there were only twelve of us with lots of space.  Completely different from now – you never leave the studio. Work for me is a private thing.

Henrion by the way employed a number of people. He liked it that way and did very well. During the Thirties there wouldn’t be many setups with more than say a dozen people. There were designers who were good at doing certain things , like the Carlton Studios, people employed doing things in a certain style.

Today there is a great change in the financial position. The big design groups emerged in the sixties – Pentagram and before them, Fletcher, Forbes and Gill. That worked, taking over from the work of individuals. Students nowadays get better salaries working for groups rather than for themselves.

Nowadays? A good technician would be ideal for me.