Jim Northover

One of the most significant changes in the design world over the last few years has gone largely unremarked. No, it’s not some aspect of technology. It’s words.

Today, designers are required to use the written word to explain, to inform, to narrate, and even to critique. Purely visual interventions are no longer enough. Content and narrative have become vital components in the design mix. The change has been one of stealth, but nonetheless notable.

It’s strange then that the only university in the UK to offer a dedicated postgraduate course in design writing and design criticism is now proposing to write it off, at least in its current form. As one of our leading design institutions, the London College of Communication (whose course I describe) may be suffering a failure of nerve. It seems no longer prepared to risk investment in a pioneering area of study and research, one which anticipates and responds to the growing importance of the written word in design.

Some of those in higher education I’ve spoken to recently see things differently. The big and influential universities, those with international reputations, often take a contrary view of risk. In the face of financial stringency they see the reputational danger in stepping back from the pioneering and the ground-breaking – the things that made them famous in the first place. Arguably, the LCC has been more attuned to the ‘real world’ of design than many of its peers. It has been known internationally for stretching the boundaries of design and responding to change.

Will that reputation survive the long knives?

When I began working at Conran Design Group in 1970 I hardly expected 40 years later to be attending a celebration for its founder’s 80th birthday. Last month Terence Conran invited a group of designer alumni for a private view of the Way We Live Now exhibition and a dinner at the Design Museum.

Back in the 1970s, getting a job at Conran was, arguably, as good as it got. There was a sense of being part of something that was happening around us, the extent of which we did not fully comprehend. Back then there were just a handful of influential design groups, and none better known, thanks to the high street presence of Habitat. Speaking at the dinner Terence Conran bemoaned the UK Government’s lack of support for design, its failure to understand how design could materially impact lives and drive economic growth. Despite his and others’ best efforts, this is sadly true. What is also true is the extent to which Conran has provided a context for how consumers and users of design view the world around us. The notion of something being ‘well designed’ has more meaning and matters more now than ever. We may argue about definitions and qualities, but the general recognition of design has been heightened by the example of this man.

A business trip to Qatar revealed a country in the grip of monumental change. With phenomenal wealth per capita comes an obligation to see beyond today and envisage a world in which the key resource is human.

Not long before it came down I visited the Serpentine Gallery Pavilion, which this year was designed by Swiss architect Peter Zumthor. A black box with dark cloistered corridors lead onto a rectangular garden space by Piet Oudolf.

Probably the most contemplative and least showy of any of the previous pavilions, it provides a context for introspection - a much needed counterpoint to so much signature architecture.

Grape harvest, Les Tannes, Languedoc, France: September 2011

These swallows, sitting on a wire outside my office window, have been summer companions. Having raised two broods, they are now preparing for the long journey south. When it comes to 'wayfinding' the bird brain is lot better than the human one. I hope they'll be back next year.

This article appeared in Eye 80 under the heading 20 years of change: graphic design in past, present and future decades

There was a point, some two decades ago, in the early 1990s, when I thought that nothing about design was going to be the same again. It was one of those significant moments. The crashing and burning of design companies was almost audible. Over the next few months it was like tinnitus; a constant, ringing reminder in your ears that it could all be over soon.

Some of the old certainties about design had gone, and new uncertainties had yet to make their impact. Many designers’ tentative investments in Mac technology had demonstrated that new skills were needed, and some old ones were no longer relevant. The internet had still to make its mark. A buoyant period for design had finally ground to a halt.

Gradually, things picked up again, as they always do, but this time I was left feeling that it was no longer wise to be subject to the vagaries of a single economy: Britain’s.

Once the design sector had shrunk back to a manageable size, and talk was no longer of price-to-earnings ratios but of concepts and typefaces again, many designers started looking overseas for work. For me, that period was characterised by more international work, opening offices in Asia, spending time on aircraft, and seeing big projects realised in countries I had never been to before. This was followed by project collaborations in the US. As the century drew to a close, it was another moment to reflect.

For those of us who had left college in the late 1960s (we were the British soixante-huitards, but without the political violence), it seemed as if we had been in a hurry to make an impact, and the 70s, 80s and 90s became that opportunity.

Starting out on your own as a design business in 1975 seemed vaguely mad, but the market gradually began to respond to designers’ ideas about how businesses could identify themselves more clearly and communicate their activities more forcefully. By the late 1980s we were all believing too much of our own hype. By the end of the 1990s we had convinced ourselves that the future was digital, and were doing it all over again. Another bubble burst, and again designers struggled to make a living. Yet another decade on, and here we are again.

The signs are not all bad though, as we look forward. A bit like the iPad2, successful design businesses will be thinner, lighter and faster in the coming years. Work patterns will continue to change, with teams forming and re-forming as projects come and go. Company structures will be more fluid and informal, continually coming together, changing shape and breaking up. Having an office, once the sine qua non of being in business, no longer seems so important. We can work remotely and need only meet face to face in order to discuss, to present or to formalise client relationships. Most of us will be independents, freelancers and contract workers, responsible for developing our personal business brands. ‘Who we know’ will continue to play a key role, so building our networks of contacts will remain vital. And luck will continue to play its part.

One thing we can be sure of: there will be more ebbs and flows, more crashing and burning every decade or so. Designers should be getting used to it by now.

Now open at Kemistry Gallery, the show is doing well: the private view launched to a packed house and it has excited lots of interest from different quarters, with the Guardian giving it a boost this Saturday.

There's a backstory to the origin of the posters. This piece I wrote for the exhibition tells the tale:

A year or so after Saul’s death in 1996, I got a call from a headhunter in the States saying that she had a brief to find someone to take over the Saul Bass studio in Los Angeles. Herb Yager, Saul’s partner, no longer wanted to run it himself, but was keen for the business to continue. Since we had been looking to set up an office in the US, this seemed like a real opportunity. After Herb was reassured that he had found suitable inheritors, the business was acquired. We celebrated the event at a dinner at the Beverly Hills Hotel with Herb, Elaine Bass (Saul’s widow) and some of the team.

A few months later we found we had inherited something else. A travelling exhibition of Saul’s film posters had been doing the rounds of film festivals all over the world. One day it arrived back in London. We had to store it and look after it. We soon realised it was too big and expensive a task to keep it properly, so we handed it on to the British Film Institute, requesting that it should not be lost from public view, and hopefully shown from time to time.

The posters on show, thanks to the BFI, are the very same ones that formed part of the travelling exhibit. They were produced by the Saul Bass studio in the 1990s to celebrate Saul’s work. Many air miles later these historic originals are now on show here.