The following is an article published in Novum Gebrauchsgraphik, January 1988. In it, Herb Flemming writes about Pentagram.
Design is the imaginative translation of a briefing into a functional, but aesthetic form. When exemplary modern design is copied, it always confirms the quality of the original. Applied design can do much to affect our working, living and recreational worlds: making stores and shopping more agreeable, books more enjoyable, chairs more comfortable and the thousands of objects of daily life more attractive and practical. Good design is the result of brainwork, the kind that pairs complex cogitation with a cultural conscience in an ideal way. Outside influences might be current fashions, the zeitgeist, trends and tendencies; internal influences could be an intact taste, a disciplined personality and a willingness to cooperate/collaborate. Discipline is one of the key words here; this is what enables the designer to organize his creativity. And a design group is a bundle of bursting energy composed of enthusiasm, wit, dynamics, progressivity, a feeling for beauty and elegance, sensitivity, warmth and humanity. Yet, the mixture remains balanced, for (ideally) each part retains its own personality while contributing to the distinctive character of the whole. The added factor of English tradition means sophistication, understatement and the ‘gentlemanly’ style. But this doesn't mean that the romantic/sentimental or even the soberly practical/professional elements are completely missing. The designer uses his intelligence in deciding what the ambience or the product images should be. He works on a permanently high level of taste and imagination - in his analytical input as well as his creative output. The solution to his assignment is weighed according to its degree of effectivity.
We are talking here about Pentagram, one of the leading design studios in Europe, if not in the entire western world. For more than a quarter-century, it has been the model for every design group in which renowned partners want to join to create a powerful unit. Its founding fathers, Alan Fletcher, Bob Gill and Colin Forbes (the latter is international CEO) recognized very early on that in design, too, the kind of alliance lawyers or architects form results in a whole that's greater than its parts, and above all in a better distribution of specific assignments. Heading the London enterprise these days are Theo Crosby, Alan Fletcher, Kenneth Grange, David Hillmann, Mervin Kurlansky and John McConnell. Holding the fort in New York are Colin Forbes and Peter Harrison.
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Here is one quote from a brochure containing Pentagram's most important work: “Unfortunately, good design defies simple explanations, because it is often something that hasn't been done before. Trying to explain that is like commenting on a meal that hasn't been cooked. You can, it's true, be more or less sure of your ground on the practical side of design - the clarity of one sign system versus another, for example - but that doesn't take into account the personality of a design. Typefaces, colours, images, shapes and materials can be used in limitless combinations which will provoke different reactions from different people. One man's Eames is another man's Bauhaus. What I like, you may not. It can be as personal and dismissive as that. So what constitutes good design is likely to escape a neat definition - certainly for as long as there are good designers who prefer to grow their own new ideas rather than copy existing solutions and thus contribute to establishing fixed standards.”
“And that, in fact, leads to a more interesting question: what makes a good designer? Above everything else it should be a respect for function. We have all suffered from beautiful jugs that don't pour cleanly, handsome offices that are hell to work in, graphically imposing slabs of text that are almost unreadable. Designers who produce striking ideas that don't work are not good designers. This seems obvious, but it is being ignored every day. Take a look at the current crop of new products and new buildings and you will find, with depressing ease, examples of function coming a poor second, and design coming an even worse first...”
To my mind, this Pentagram definition confirms everything already stated in this report:
An enterprise rich in ideas whose functional forms are developed with an eye to aesthetics, flexible in its thinking and successful in its dealings; One that sets an example in its contemporary approach; one with original ideas that are often copied - complex in their substructure, more cultural than subcultural; One whose strategy comes more from inner motives than outer influences; One that is disciplined, well-organized, cooperative, creative in teamwork; One that personifies English tradition in its corporate identity: flexible, with no mannerisms but still with an unmistakable signature. The Pentagram works excerpted from their brochure to be featured on these pages provide a solid confirmation of the above estimation.
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