I was very sad to hear a few days ago of the passing of Raymond Hawkey. Without doubt he was the first major influence on my life as a graphic designer. I could go on and on, but suffice it to say his work was revolutionary on its first appearance, and still stands up admirably today. Hawkey once went to a party, and was deputed to eject a gatecrasher who turned out to be Len Deighton. They became lifelong friends, and Hawkey produced the dust jackets for a long series of Deighton's novels. Just take a detailed look at that cover for Funeral in Berlin. And if you want to see one of the best film title sequences ever, watch Oh! What a Lovely War, written and produced by Deighton. (Although for reasons still not entirely clear Deighton took his name off Richard Attenborough's directorial debut.) Hawkey was also the designer who put a bullet hole through the Pan paperback cover of Ian Fleming's Thunderball. Along with John Gorham, he will never be forgotten.
3 comments:
I was hoping you'd post these. There's so much about Hawkey's work that was - and remains - influential: the quality of the photography, the idea of a collection of objects telling a story, the white backgrounds, the clean typography, etc. And amongst the hard-hitting imagery, those touches of humour in the bag. Marvellous. The man is gone but the work endures.
Excellent stuff! Some of these Johnny-come-lately 'designers' could learn from this.
It would be a struggle to get designs of such brilliant, stark simplicity approved by all the committees and nabobs infesting publishers these days.
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