Inspiring Older Readers

posted on 27 Apr 2020

Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design by Theo Inglis

I love design books but struggle to find titles that are enjoyable and informative for the layperson. When I saw reference to Theo Inglis’s 2019 book, Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design I couldn’t resist ordering a copy. At twenty quid in hardback it really is a beautifully produced and well-made book. For one thing, it has a sewn binding, which is increasingly rare, even in some art and illustrated books.

Inglis spends some time in a deftly written introduction (and I should say, his writing is at all times deft and elegant) attempting to classify what everyone now simply calls MCM design – mid-century modern. I find that MCM is a little like the old chestnut about pornography – hard to describe, hard to agree upon, but you invariably know it when you see it. MCM encapsulates everything about the dynamism, informality and emerging modernism and avant-garde tendencies that were increasingly evident in post-war design roughly from the late-1940s (in the US and elsewhere) or perhaps from the Festival of Britain in 1951 (in Britain).

Greater informality, abstraction, hand-written lettering, biomorphic and organic forms, a borrowing from the European avant-garde – a look at once futuristic while also, certainly for many viewers, rich in nostalgia, MCM has all of this and more. It is no accident that MCM has become such a ubiquitous descriptor on the internet and all social media platforms. Everyone with a bit of junk to knock out on eBay knows to employ the MCM tag. Who knows – some of that intangible Charles and Ray Eames style and sophistication may just rub off on your rickety coffee table or your nan’s wire plant-stand or the old curtains you found in the attic.

But this is to devalue MCM and that is not my intention. The term may be vague and cover a few decades either side of what might strictly be regarded the middle of the twentieth century, but the pleasure and enjoyment offered by the best of design from that period, and especially graphic design, are to my mind immeasurable, and that is where Inglis’s book triumphs: it is a glorious feast for the eyes.

Inglis explores the best of MCM graphic design in five categories – book covers, record sleeves, posters and promotion, magazine covers, and illustrated books – explaining its aesthetic, its roots and influences, the key artists and illustrators, the role of MCM design in the Cold War, the US as a centre of early MCM influences, the relationship to Scandinavian design styles and traditions, and a host of other details which if I am strictly honest were at times probably a bit more than I needed.

For my money, the best section is the first on book cover design – which is pure joy. It covers the exploding market for paperbacks that fuelled an inexhaustible demand for graphic and illustrative work by hundreds of artists, many of whom could scarcely keep up with the work they were offered. Oddly, US imprints such as New Directions, Vintage, Doubleday, Harvest and a host of others led the way here from the late-40s because at this time, and indeed well into the 1950s, major UK publishing houses such as Penguin were not yet wedded to the idea of pictorial jackets. I found this section hugely enlightening and worth the price of admission on its own.

The chapter on record sleeves was good but perhaps not quite as good as I expected or hoped for. The chapter on posters and promotion is good but examples could have come from such an almost unlimited number of sources that everyone will quibble I suppose about whether their own favourites are included. Magazine covers I found suffered from a similar problem and the choice of Fortune, Graphis, Design and other magazines of the period seemed a little too obvious.

The weakest section, oddly enough, I thought was that on illustrated books. Here I thought the net really wasn’t cast widely enough and I think the problem is that Inglis chooses to focus on artists (such as Richard Erdoes and Miroslav Šašek who have become recognised as central to the MCM ‘canon’), while neglecting some artists and illustrators I particularly admire whose work has a distinctive MCM feel to it. Terence Greer, Giovanni Thermes, Malcolm M Carder, Denis Piper, Paul Hogarth and Elaine Raphael, to name just a few, all of whom did superlative work for Penguin Books from the 50s onwards, or illustrators of a slightly later generation such as Brian Wildsmith and Charles Keeping, who became giants of the illustrated children’s book from the 60s and 70s – all of these artists could have enjoyed greater exposure in this book. And certainly the great Swiss graphic artist, Celestino Piatti, is thinly represented indeed when one considers not just his commercial design work but his illustrated books for children.

But this to argue over an embarrassment of riches. As a source book of MCM graphic design, as an overview of the aesthetic, and simply as a rich visual feast that offers hours of browsing pleasure, Mid-Century Modern Graphic Design will reward. That it does so at such a reasonable price, in such a well-made book and with such a lot of lightly-worn learning is icing on the cake. Hugely enjoyable and a book I know I will return to often. Treat yourself.

 

Alun Severn

April 2020

 

You can see a good number of tear-sheets from the book on Theo Inglis’s website