Not here

I’ve tried to write a sensible blog post today, I really have, but my brain just isn’t co-operating.  So my thoughts on Catherine Flood’s British Posters: Advertising, Art and Activism will have to wait for another day. When I might actually have some thoughts to relate.

So I was just going to give you a poster of a cat by way of apology.

But I can actually do a bit better than that.  Because the Brighton Design Archives have been putting up some of their holdings on Flickr, and they tweeted the other day that set of Henrion’s work had just gone up.  And so it has.

It’s only a small set, but it provides a neat overview of Henrion’s career, beginning with wartime posters and illustration work.

As the decade moves on, the poster is no longer king and the designs that Henrion produces are increasingly part of a whole corporate identity.

Coincidentally, the set is in fact illustrating one of the arguments in the poster book, that only a very few designers in the 1950s remained poster artists, while many more set up companies and set about creating corporate brands instead.

A point that is very true of Henrion.

The illustrations are all informatively captioned, and it’s well worth going to look at the set yourself.  I learned two things, one is that Henrion designed this famous CND poster.  (I knew the poster very well, just had no idea that it was his)

The other is that there is apparently one of those petite design books out about Henrion.  Has anyone read it?  Is it any good?  Shall I buy it? If you want to know more about him for free, though, there is a fine interview from Blueprint in 1986, which is here.

Meanwhile a normal service will resume later this week when I hope to have my brain back and working.