Well I went up Leeds at the end of last week, to give a talk at the Marks and Spencer archive about Daphne Padden.
This was a lot of fun, even if I’m not entirely sure that I fulfilled the alleged title of the talk, which was about Daphne Padden and design in the 1960s and 1970s.
I did cover Daphne Padden’s work for Marks and Spencers, but that didn’t take very long at all, because we don’t really know very much about it. Which isn’t just me not trying very hard, but between me knowing about Daphne Padden and the archive knowing all about M&S, there still isn’t very much information out there at all.
And that, in the end, was one of the main themes of the talk: just how little we know about designers and design of this period, despite all the best intentions of archives, academics and people like me. Served with a large dose of my general thoughts on archives, not knowing things and why coach posters are brilliant, most of which will be familiar to any regular reader of this blog
I was considering posting the talk on here, but that’s before I delivered it and realised that it was a rambling and somewhat opionated mess that probably wouldn’t play that well without the facial expressions and apologies.
But I did meet lots of lovely audience people there too, who asked interesting questions, so I’m happy to answer any questions on here if anyone wants. Although be warned in advance, quite a few of the answers tend to be, we just don’t know.
Well it certainly sounds like you had a good time, and so did the audience, so I guess you achieved the main purpose of a talk!
The spoken word written down may indeed just not make sense in the same way without gestures etc, as you say.
We have missed your presence on your blog though, so the world of posters and design has sadly been very quiet of late. I hope life will allow you some time soon to amuse and educate us, in the way to which we have become accustomed.