Online Talk on 24th June 6pm
Join us for a fascinating online talk exploring the work of two of the Festival of Britain’s most influential designers, through the unique perspectives of their daughters.
Naomi Games and Henrietta Goodden are the daughters of two of the Festival of Britain’s most prominent designers; Games designed the famous Festival Symbol and Goodden designed the Lion and Unicorn pavilion on the South Bank, London.
The Talk
Henrietta's talk will centre around the origins, concept and design of the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion, and its relevance to the South Bank site and its festival buildings.
Naomi will talk about her father’s personal philosophy of ‘maximum meaning, minimum means’ that gave his works their distinctive conceptual and visual quality. She will show his designs and progressive sketches for the Festival of Britain emblem and will explain his working process and will explain the birth of the symbol.
The Designers
Robert Goodden and Dick Russell, brother of Gordon Russell, had both recently been made professors in Robin Darwin’s post-war restructuring of the RCA; Darwin wholeheartedly agreed they could work on the project on condition that the results would enhance College’s reputation, and in fact so many staff and students became involved that he and others came to believe it was a College commission.
Abram Games was one of 20th century Britain’s most innovative and important graphic designers. With a career spanning sixty years he produced some of Britain’s most enduring images, which are now a fascinating record of social history.
During the Second World War, when he designed 100 posters, he was uniquely appointed ‘Official War Poster Artist’. Post-war, he created posters for Shell, London Transport, Guinness, the Financial Times, the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British Airways. He designed the first animated ident for BBC television, the covers of Penguin Books and the emblems for the 1951 Festival of Britain and the Queen’s Award to Industry. Games also created postage stamps issued in Britain, Jersey, and Israel. www.abramgames.com
The Speakers
Henrietta Goodden is a former Senior Tutor in Fashion at the Royal College of Art. She has published four books on various aspects of the College and its history. Her father, Robert Goodden, and Dick Russell were commissioned to design the Lion and Unicorn Pavilion on London's South Bank, directly behind the Royal Festival Hall, to celebrate the theme of British Culture and Tradition.
Naomi grew up watching her father work in his studio in the family home and studied typography and graphic design. Since Games’s death in 1996, she has written six books and has produced a film on her father’s work. She has organized numerous exhibitions on various aspects of Games’s work and of his contemporaries. She now runs Abram’s considerable archive, which is open to all, writes on design and lectures both in the UK and abroad.
Organised by
This talk is organised by the Friends of the Gordon Russell Design Museum, and profits will help to support the continuing work of the Museum.
www.gordonrusselldesignmuseum.org
events: www.gordonrusselldesignmuseum.org/online-events/