the work of the royal designers for industry

THE WORK OF THE ROYAL DESIGNERS FOR INDUSTRYAuthor(s): Gordon RussellSource: Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Vol. 96, No. 4780 (OCTOBER 22, 1948), pp. 765-770Published by: Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and CommerceStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/41363698 .

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Oct. 22, 1948 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS 765

THE WORK OF THE ROYAL DESIGNERS FOR INDUSTRY

Reprint of a lecture given by Gordon Russell, c.b.e., m.c., r.d.i., f.s.i. a., to the Design and Industries Association , at Burlington House on October 6th , 1948.

The Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry is only twelve years old. At this tender age it is about to hold an exhibition of its members' work at the Royal Academy, sponsored by the Royal Society of Arts and the Council of Industrial Design.

To me there is something singularly appropriate in the collaboration of these four bodies which has made the exhibition possible, and I think it is the happiest augury for the future of Industrial Design in England. In the first place, it was as a result of an exhibition at Burlington House in 1935, in which the Royal Academy was closely associated with the Royal Society of Arts, that Mr. J. A. Milne put forward the suggestion that the ancient and learned society, of which he has been such an active member, should set up an exclusive panel of not more than forty industrial designers eminent in their profession. Now the Royal Society of Arts, or, to give it its full title, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, is the oldest body in England which has been interested in industrial design problems from its inception in 1754.

During the active presidency of the Prince Consort, the Society was responsible for initiating the Great Exhibition of 1851 in Hyde Park. The Crystal Palace in which the exhibition was housed was, in itself, one of the most remarkable examples of nineteenth-century industrial design. Its whole history was fascinating. Designed by Joseph Paxton, a most ingenious gardener, after another monumental effort had been accepted, it was seen to be in every way much more appropriate and less costly. It was made of standard parts of cast iron and glass in a remarkably short space of time and showed the possibilities of pre-fabrication. Curiously enough, the building was much better than most of the exhibits which the Prince Consort hoped would illustrate a happy marriage between art and industry.

Three years before this exhibition was held, in 1848 - a year of revolutions- the Royal Society of Arts had the courage to stage a curtain-raiser; a small exhibition to make manufacturers aware of what was coming in 1851. I am sure you will agree that it is most appropriate that under the Presidency of the Prince Consort's great-great-grand-daughter, the Princess Elizabeth, a similar gesture should be made. 1948 is not yet a year of revolutions, but it is certainly one of great political unrest and only three years from a most exhausting war. Again we shall need to stick to our guns and not be flustered by bogey mongers.

The other body concerned in this exhibition by invitation of the Royal Society of Arts is the Council of Industrial Design and it is the youngest of all, not yet four years old. But in "Britain can make it" in London and "Enterprise Scotland" in Edinburgh and various travelling exhibitions it has already shown a considerable knowledge of exhibition technique. The Council of Industrial Design is a proof that the Government now takes industrial design seriously. It is indeed a matter of great importance that the design of British catalogues, packaging and goods should be as high in standard as the workmanship and material.

I am proud to say that I am closely linked with three of these bodies - as an



увв JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Oct. 22, 1948

ex-officio member of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts, Master of the Faculty of the Royal Designers for Industry and Director of the Council of Industrial Design.

In setting up the Faculty of the Royal Designers for Industry in 1936, the Royal Society of Arts wished to enhance the prestige of the whole profession of industrial design in this country. They did not wish to set up an exclusive body in the narrow sense. We accept that responsibility very fully. Although this exhibition is pioneered by the Royal Designers for Industry, it tells a story which is common to ail designers. I wish to make it very clear that there are numbers of most competent designers who, owing t Q the limitation to forty - to my mind a necessary limitation - cannot call themselves Royal Designers for Industry. These letters should connote a standard, but most certainly not a feeling of superiority or complacency. We are not a professional body. It is obvious that in a group with a total membership of forty covering industrial design as a whole no one industry could be adequately represented. It was never intended that it should be. We are indeed on the very friendliest terms with the Society of Industrial Artists, of which many of us are members and which is the recognised body in the industrial design profession, with special groups for textiles, commercial art and so on. Its president, Milner Gray, who has done so much to nurse this young society through the usual teething troubles, is himself an r.d.i. and is responsible for planning our exhibition.

I hope I have made reasonably clear to you this somewhat involved but, to me, extremely interesting background picture.

What then is the work of the Royal Designers for Industry? In the first place I would say that the Faculty, as a body, does not, of course, design or accept com- missions of any sort. But many of its members have worked together at one time or another on problems which were sometimes closely linked and sometimes much more loosely connected. An example of the former is the Design Panel for Utility Furniture at the Board of Trade. Of this I was Chairman from its setting-up in 1943 until last year, when Frank Austin took over. Among the Royal Designers for Industry who worked on it at various times were Enid Marx, R. Y. Goodden and my brother, R. D. Russell. An example of the second kind is in the widely dispersed activities of London Transport. Here no fewer than ten Royal Designers for Industry have worked at one time or another. The list is an interesting one : Christian Barman (publicity, lettering), Eric Gill (sculpture), Milner Gray (posters), Charles Holden (architecture), McKnight Kauffer (posters), Enid Marx (moquettes), Harold Stabler (tiles and posters), Fred Taylor (posters), Anna Zinkeisen (posters) and myself. Then there is the comparison between designing for hand and machine technique in a similar material as shown by Edward Hald's work for Orrefors (Sweden) or the late James Hogan's designs for table glass for Powells and the table glass by R. Y. Goodden for Chance's. The first shows admirably the brilliance and bubble-like quality of hand-made glass and the latter is based on most careful study of the slightly misty surface which is one of the results of pressing glass in a mould and the necessity of allowing for the "flash" caused by joints in the mould.

Then too it should be noted how the last designer, R. Y. Goodden, has tackled a wide variety of design problems : glass, silver - he designed the gold box presented by the Royal Society of Arts to the Princess Elizabeth and the Sword of Honour




presented by the City of London to Lord Alanbrooke, both of which will be shown in the Exhibition - also furniture, marquetry and exhibition stands - whereas the extreme complexity of designing aircraft or ships means that Sir Geoffrey de Havilland, B. N. Wallis and Charles Nicholson very naturally have little time for other subjects.

Again some R.D.I. s themselves practise a craft and also design for the machine. The late Eric Gilt was an outstanding figure in this class. A letter-cutter of genius, a well-known sculptor, an expert wood-engraver and designer of several founts of type of great beauty for the Monotype Corporation, one of which, his "Perpetua", is used for the exhibition book. As one who believes that hand and machine work are complementary, even if only in the narrow sense that some things are wanted singly and others in quantities, I think this combination is most important. A world dominated entirely by the machine must of necessity be a far poorer world than one which also has the stimulation, experimentation and inventiveness which only the closest association between designer and craftsman merged in one person can give. It was because of Gill's immense knowledge of the individual letter by actually drawing and cutting it for years at far more than type size that he became such an efficient and sensitive type designer. As Sir Francis Meynell has pointed out, printing is unique among crafts in that whilst ali printing jobs are purpose made, it has been itself a mass production job from the beginning. Perhaps it is because of this longer experience that its standard is so much higher than that of many other trades. In book designing and typography, too, the names of Sir Francis Meynell, founder of the Nonesuch Press, J. H. Mason and Percy Delf Smith are widely known. There is Sir Ambrose Heal, whose pioneering work on furniture design has steadily raised the standard and R. D. Russell and Wells Coates, who have both had a very great influence on the radio trade over nearly twenty years, using both wood and plastics.

The fact that there has been no recognised training for industrial designers is shown by the number of architects who have turned their hands to this work. Charles Holden, architect of the new London University, of hospitals and of London Transport stations, has also designed furniture and industrial equipment. Keith Murray, whose admirable glass for Stevens and Williams and pottery for

Wedgwoods gave him the necessary knowledge of production method to collaborate in designing the new Wedgwood factory at Barlaston, one of the most seemly and

up-to-date pottery factories in the world. Brian O'Rorke, who has been appointed architect for the new National Theatre, has done excellent ship-fitting for the Orient Line. Christian Barman has built several houses, designed several years ago, the first real breakaway electric iron, bus shelters and lettering. Wells Coates has

designed new types of housing and extensions to the Ekco factory. He also designed their radio cabinets; even catamaran sailing boats are among the wide range of other

things to which he has turned his attention. R. D. Russell and Allan Walton built several houses. Robert Goodden has already been mentioned. The work of Alvar

Aalto, Walter Gropius and Steen Eiler Rasmussen is internationally known. All of these are architects.

Then, in Allan Walton also, a member of another group appears. Not only did he

design textiles which have had a great effect but he set up his own company to



768 JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Oct. 22, 1948

produce them and then gave great encouragement to other designers as well. Milner Gray, of Design Research Unit, comes into this category. A competent designer himself - his work during the war for the Ministry of Information greatly raised the standard of exhibitions - he has gathered together a group of designers who have specialised in packaging, exhibition stands and similar problems. Sir Ambrose Heal has not only designed much furniture but has made Heal & Son a centre of pilgrimmage for all who care about well-designed things. The same applies to Susie Cooper, whose pottery is well known.

There is a group of Royal Designers for Industry who work by hand for trans- lation into machine processes: Duncan Grant, Allan Walton, Ethel Mairet in textiles - the latter specialising in first-rate hand-wöven and hand-spun textiles, but also interested in making experiments for machine weaving ; Percy Metcalfe, designer of coinage for Eire, New Zealand, Turkey, Greece, Iraq, Fiji, Egypt and Bulgaria and also stamps; Tom Purvis, Fred Taylor, McKnight Kauffer, Anna Zinkeisen and the late Harold Stabler in posters - Stabler also designed silver, glass, medals and enamels and was one of the best heraldic artists of his time. His knowledge of animals and trees was remarkable.

Anna Zinkeisen has also been responsible for stage decor, as have Gordon Craig and Laurence Irving. Such artists, working in a way which admits of bold experiments, can powerfully affect the shape of things to come. Raymond Loewy is in a class of his own, as he works on a truly American scale.

Several Royal Designers for Industry are design directors to well-known firms. The work of Reco Capey for Yardleys, Ashley Havinden for W. S. Crawford, or A. B. Read for Troughton and Young is known far and wide. Ashley Havinden, who has designed the Exhibition poster, has affected the outlook of his generation on posters and similar work. The Lighting Centre is Read's work over the past twenty years. The work of R.D.I.s on exhibitions has been of outstanding importance: James Gardner on "Britain Can Make It", "Enterprise Scotland" and "Design Fair" and many others, Milner Gray as mentioned with the Ministry of Informa- tion, Wells Coates, R. Y. Goodden, R. D. Russell, and, for good window display, E. W. Grieve.

Among R.D.I.s, who paint, lithograph or etch, I would mention James Gardner, Duncan Grant, Ashley Havinden, Tom Purvis, Percy Delf Smith, Allan Walton, Anna Zinkeisen and McKnight Kauffer.

Royal Designers for Industry may be found on almost all committees dealing with design problems, and their range of expert knowledge is wide and valuable. Among those who write, lecture or broadcast, I must mention Christian Barmen, Wells Coates, Gordon Craig, James Gardner, R. Y. Goodden, Milner Gray, Ashley Havinden, Sir Francis Meynell, A. B. Reed, R. D. Russell, Allan Walton, Enid Marx, Walter Gropius, Raymond Loewy, Edward Hald and Alvar Aalto.

All these designers feel that education of the public in higher standards of design is absolutely essential and that this is a job in which they must take a turn, often in spite of pressing work in other directions. I think it must be admitted that at the present time the practising designer with wide experience can impart knowledge which cannot be gained by teachers who leave one art school as a student to teach in another. I am therefore proud to be able to say that a large number of R.D.I.s




have given time to teaching because they felt it was an essential thing to do. An outstanding example was my very dear friend, Allan Walton, who died a few weeks ago. During the war he was Principal of the Glasgow School of Art and he was to have taken over the Chair of Textile Design at the Royal College of Art, under Robin Darwin, who is courageously reorganising the School. Two other R.D.I. s are teaching there, Professor R. Y. Goodden - silver - and Professor R. D. Russell -

light engineering and furniture. Harold Stabler was for many years Principal of the School of Art of the Sir John Cass Institute, where he was followed by Milner Gray, who also held the appointment for several years. H. G. Murphy was for several years Principal of the Central School of Arts and Crafts. Professor Aal to is lecturing in America. Professor Walter Gropius is in the Chair of Architecture at Harvard, and Professor Rasmussen, who at one time taught at the Architectural Association and wrote one of the best books on London, is' at the Academy School, Copenhagen.

At this meeting organised by the Design and Industries Association it is not inappropriate for me to mention that several of the founder-members of the D.I. A. in 1915 were later elected members of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. Among these were Sir Ambrose Heal and Harold Stabler. This is very much as it should be, for it must not be forgotten that the Design and Industries Association's pioneering work helped to make Royal Designers for Industry possible.

I hope I have given you some picture of this exclusive body - the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry - of which I have had the honour of being Master for a second year. I am the sixth Master to hold office, my predecessors being H. G. Murphy, Tom Purvis, James H. Hogan, Percy Delf Smith and Keith Murray. They are the people, who with care and skill during the exceptionally difficult war years, laid the foundations which have made it possible to start building.

I think you will agree with me when I say that one would be optimistic indeed to believe that wars lead to an improvement in manners. The exact opposite is the case. Over great areas of the world we find to-day the most elementary rules of courtesy flouted and, not unnaturally, human relationships do not survive the strain. The standard of industrial design in a country is one of the visible signs of its standard of manners and of its general approach to life. Never was it so important to hold fast to real values. Here we are determined that the Faculty shall play its part, albeit a very small one, in the great revolution we are witnessing. It is the quality of the leaven that is important, not the amount. To say that we are satisfied with our achievements would be ridiculous. We shall never be satisfied, and at the present time the frustration caused by the endless difficulties in getting designs from the drawing-board into production is very great. Even so, an occasional stocktaking is sometimes heartening, occasionally shattering, but always necessary.

Owing to the generosity of the Royal Society of Arts, we have been allowed to use the Society's House for all our meetings and for sherry parties once a month. The latter have proved very popular and have given opportunities to bring other designers as guests. We paid a visit to " Enterprise Scotland" and another to Sweden. Our greatest venture - the exhibition - is only a few weeks ahead. I would like to say how very much we appreciate the interest which The Princess Elizabeth as President of the Royal Society of Arts takes in the Faculty. Her Royal Highness paid a visit to the Society's House and presented Diplomas to three R.D.I. s last



77° JOURNAL OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF ARTS Oct. 22, 1948

year. Also I want to pay a very special tribute to Sir Harry Lindsay, Chairman of the Council of the Royal Society of Arts and President of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry. In him we have a most devoted friend and I cannot fully express the pleasure I have had from my association with him. It is certainly true that, without his help, the work we have been able to do would have been impossible. We have also been most fortunate in having Kenneth Luckhurst, the Society's Secretary, as Secretary of the Faculty. His keen interest in our work and his knowledge of the Society have been of the utmost value. I can only hope that our verv young and small Faculty will be able to live up to the splendid tradition of public service which has been built up over nearly two centuries by its great foster-parent, the Royal Society of Arts. If it can do so, the influence of the Faculty of Royal Designers for Industry in improving standards of industrial design will become very great indeed and thus justify the vision of its far-seeing creators.

OBITUARY Sir Frank Noyce. - It is with regret that we have to announce the death recently of

Sir Frank Noyce, k.c.s.i., c.b.e., who had been a very active member of the India, Pakistan and Burma Committee of the Society for a number of years, and who had on many occasions presided at and taken part in meetings of this section.

Noyce was born near Salisbury in' 1878 and went into the Indian Civil Service in 1901 . In 1 915-16 he was Secretary in the Revenue and Agricultural Department and later served as President of the Indian Sugar Commission. In 1922-23 he acted as Trade Commissionei for India in London and then he presided in turn over the Indian Coal Committee and the Indian Tariff Board. In 1927 he helped prepare the massive repDrt made by the Royal Commission on Agriculture in India. Then he became Secretary in the Education, Health and Lands Department and in 1932 he was appointed to the Viceroy's Executive Council as Member for Industries and Labour.

GENERAL NOTES The Royal Photographic Society's Exhibition. - The annual exhibition of the

Royal Photographic Society has in recent years developed to such an extent that it has been found convenient to display the prints in two parts.

Part one includes all the pictorial prints and the lantern slides and has been open at 16, Princes Gate during September. It was reported in the Journal on page 691. Now follows, at the same address, part two, which includes Nature Photography, Record, Press and Commercial prints, and Scientific Photography. This exhibition is open daily till the end of October (up to 8 p.m. on weeknights).

This year, out of over 7,000 entries, 189 prints and 40 lantern slides were on view in part one, while now in part two there are 258 prints and 66 lantern slides. Not only is this the larger section but its scope and interest are very much wider. The first impression on seeing the prints, is the very high technical quality of the photography. Every aid of modern science is envisaged in the processes.

Some years ago the amazing photographs taken at such small intervals as i/ioo,oooth second at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology enabled us to see such things as the flattening of a golf ball at the moment of impact, the digging of the toe into the rugger ball on kicking it. Nowadays modern high-speed flash apparatus is within the reach of many photographers, and good use seems to have been made of it in nature study.

Eric Hosking has three studies, obtained by flash at night, of the Owl, the Night Jar and the Wheatear in flight. The photograph is now taken before the flash has made any impression on the bird and there is, consequently, some arrested movement. The most outstanding flash photograph is that of the Robin in flight, in which the outstretched



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