Designer Desire: Ronald Lampitt

Montage of Ronald Lampitt illustrations

Born in Worcester, Ronald Lampitt (1906-1988) was a painter, poster designer, book and magazine illustrator and children’s author. In doing research about his output for this post, I discovered that he created material for Brock’s Fireworks – who we featured here on the blog many moons ago.

Lampitt’s periodical work included illustrations for Readers’ Digest, Zoo, Passing Show, Modern Wonder, John Bull, Look and Learn, Treasure and Mickey Mouse Weekly.

Ronald Lampitt also illustrated books for Oxford University Press and, most memorably, Ladybird Books. Titles for the latter included Understanding Maps (1967), Birds and how they Live, Plants and how they Grow, Animals and how they Live and Insects and Small Animals.

Many of these books were in collaboration with his brother-in-law, Henry James Deverson (Lampitt was married to Deverson’s sister, Mona). The two men collaborated on a number of children’s books, including The Map that Came to Life (1948, Oxford University Press), The Open Road (1962) and The Story of Bread (1964, Puffin Books).

His other association with Deverson included working on the Mainly for Children series that was published by the Sunday Times during the early 1960s.

He both authored and illustrated the children’s book, The Story of Paint, in 1962.

His advertising poster design were commissioned and produced by British Railways, Great Western Railway, London Midland & Scottish Railway, Southern Railway and Brooke Bond tea.

Find vintage copies of books that he illustrated on Abe Books and Amazon.

Image credits:
Art UK | Invaluable | Tumblr

 

Designer Desire: Bruno Munari

Montage of Bruno Munari designs

Bruno Munari (1907-1998) is probably as close as you’d get to an all-encompassing creative. Born in Milan, he was a graphic designer, industrial & product designer, children’s toy designer, painter, sculptor, film-maker, book illustrator & author and educator.

In the 30s & 40s, he worked as art director on Tempo Magazine, Grazia and for a short while, Domus. He also later became a consultant on the fledgling Epoca Magazine. In 1948, he was one of the founder members of Movimento Arte Concreta (MAC), the Italian concrete art movement.

He designed for many of the top Italian design houses including Danese Milano, Olivetti, Pirelli, Robots and Zanotta. For Danese, he created the iconic Falkland suspension lamp and Cubo ashtray (both shown in the montage above). For Zanotta, he created the whimsical Singer chair – described by the company as a, “Chair for very brief visits”.

There are many books by and about Munari available on Abe Books and Amazon.

Art shall not be separated from life: things that are good to look at, and bad to be used, should not exist. Bruno Munari, 1966

Portrait of Bruno Munaricredit

Additional image credits:
1stDibs | Pamono

Designer Desire: Pat Hutchins

Montage of Pat Hutchins children's books

Pat Hutchins (1942-2017) was a children’s author and illustrator – I’d wager that almost every British child from the 70s onwards has had at least one of her books read to them.

Hutchins was originally from near Richmond in North Yorkshire. In 1958, she gained a scholarship to attend Darlington School of Art. She then went on to study for a National Diploma in Illustration at Leeds College of Art. On leaving college, she moved down to London in search of work, becoming an assistant art director at an advertising agency in 1963.

It was here that she met her husband and with whom she emigrated to New York in 1966 when he was given a work posting.

While still in the USA, her first book was published; Rosie’s Walk in 1968. It has since been translated into 10 languages and is still in print today.

She said that her favourite book that she wrote was Titch. It was based on the younger of her two sons, Morgan.

She won the 1974 Kate Greenaway Medal from the Library Association, recognising the year’s best children’s book illustration by a British subject. The work was The Wind Blew, a picture book accompanied by words in verse.

In all, she has authored and illustrated around 50 children’s titles. She collaborated with her husband on 5 older children’s books including The Mona Lisa Mystery, where she composed the words and he created the accompanying illustrations.

In 1995 and 1996, she began presenting the famous British children’s television series, Rosie and Jim. She did the programme for 2 series.

Have a watch of Pat talking about her books below:

Portrait of Pat Hutchinscredit

Additional image credits:
Penguin | Simon and Schuster | The Times

Designer Desire: Tomi Ungererer

Montage of Tomi Ungererer illustrations

Tomi Ungererer (1931–2019) was a French born illustrator of children’s books (and some for adults) and posters. His first book was The Mellops Go Flying, about an adventurous family of pigs. The follow-up was entitled The Mellops Go Diving for Treasure, after which more were added to the series.

After leaving his homeland, he has travelled and lived all around the world. He moved to New York in the 1950s where he created work for publications such as The New York Times, Village Voice, Life and Esquire. In 1971, he and his 3rd wife emigrated to rural Nova Scotia, Canada where he became a farmer. In the mid-1970s, they moved again, this time to West Cork in Ireland; they divided their time between here and Strasbourg until his death in 2019.

Much as I love his children’s book illustrations, it’s his hard-hitting political posters that really grab my attention. In his own words:

Posters for me are the most challenging and gratifying exercise. A poster has to act by impact, to catch the eye of a passerby within a few seconds. I would say the poster is more of an art form than most other kinds of advertising.
In the 1960’s I started to make political posters. Two subjects sparked my revulsion and my anger: racial segregation and the War on Vietnam. Later I did posters for other causes such as Amnesty International, liberty of the press, animal rights, ecology, nuclear disarmament and so on.

In 2007, the Tomi Ungerer Museum in his home-town of Strasbourg first opened its doors. Back in 1975, he’d donated a large part of his work and currently, the museum’s collection includes 11,000 of his drawings, as well as 6,500 toys from his personal collection.

As well as being an illustrator, he was a sculptor and architect. He designed a kindergarten in Karlsruhe, Germany which is uniquely shaped like a reclining cat. The front door is its mouth and its tail is a silver slide through which the children can exit.

Portrait of Tomi Ungererercredit

Additional image credits:
Phaidon | Tomi Ungererer