Bob Gill — an American illustrator and graphic designer — died this week at age 90.
Bob Gill was the co-founder of Fletcher/Forbes/Gill, the London studio he established with Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes in 1962 that was the forerunner to Pentagram. Bob left the company in 1967 to pursue opportunities in film and theater, and Alan and Colin later added more partners and eventually formed Pentagram in 1972.
Bob was born in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, and studied graphic design in Philadelphia and New York before moving to London to work in advertising. It was there that he met Alan and Colin, and as legend has it, they finally agreed to join together and form their own studio on advice given to Bob by a fortune teller. Fundamental to their practice was the belief that the best design is rooted in a good idea, rather than style, a principle Pentagram still follows today.
The Trio’s Graphic design: Visual Comparisons, (1963), sold more than 100,000 copies. Gill resigned from the partnership in 1967 and resumed freelance life, which included teaching, writing children’s books and film-making.
One of the founders of the Designers and Art Directors Association (D&AD) and an avid author on design, Bob Gill strongly believed that designers are the original problem solvers.
For Gill research, lots of it, was crucial to the creative process and good design is “what communicates best in original way, that says exactly what you want it to say. Not the design that just looks good.”
Gill received the highest accolades from several Art Directors Clubs including the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the D&AD Association of London.
“As a designer and a teacher I am a proselytiser. I am always interested in spreading the word because from my point of view the state of the art is so terrible”
Bob Gill in conversation with Rob Alderson
Gill’s books include I keep changing, Ups & Downs and Forget all the rules you ever learned about graphic design. Including the ones in this book and, Logomania, Graphic Design as a Second Language, Graphic design made difficult. His clients include Nestlé, D&AD, Apple Corps, the Rainbow Theatre, the Anti-apartheid Movement, Pirelli, CBS, Universal Pictures, Joseph Losey, Queen, Design, High Times and the United Nations.
Bob Gill’s words of wisdom to the next generation of Illustrators
Among his many accomplishments, he was the second president of D&AD (in 1964) and collaborated on the book and design of the hit Broadway musical “Beatlemania” (1977). He was a filmmaker and children’s book author and illustrator, and taught for over 50 years.
Sources:
- In Memory of Bob Gill, 1931–2021 (Pentagram)
- Reputations: Bob Gill (Eye Magazine)
- Bob Gill: a tribute to the feisty American design pioneer (Typeroom)
- Designer, proselytiser and visual communication critic: an interview with the inimitable Bob Gill (It’s Nice That)
