Grafik Magazine.......................................................................
Special Report: Graphic Design Heros - A. Wainwright..................................
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I contributed an article to the July 2006 issue (142) of Grafik magazine as part of...
their annual 'graphic design heros - special report'..................................
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The full article can be found just below the images, please scroll down...............
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Graphic design heroes - A. Wainwright.................................................
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“The real hero is always a hero by mistake…” Umberto Eco..............................
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A. Wainwright wasn’t a graphic designer; he wasn’t a designer at all. He’s considered.
a ‘master fellwalker and author’. He produced fantastically designed books but this...
was just the medium he chose as an expression of his love.............................
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His real passion was for the Lake District, an affair kindled at the age of twenty-...
three on his first visit, it became his life long obsession. A. Wainwright said the...
experience of first ascending Orrest Head, a peak in the far eastern fells,...........
transformed the course of his life – he realized that he would never see the streets..
of Blackburn, his home town, in the same way..........................................
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He was born in 1907 and left school at the age of thirteen to work in the Borough.....
Engineer’s office in order to support his family. In 1941 he moved to Kendal to be in.
his beloved peaks, he lived there for the rest of his life never venturing abroad.....
He died in 1991 at the age of eighty-four.............................................
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From 1952 A. Wainwright began to devote every spare moment he had to researching and..
compiling his seven ‘pictorial guides’ - guidebooks to walking in the Lakeland Fells;.
these are beautifully drawn and intricately detailed. They demonstrate consummate.....
design skill, a fantastic, intuitive, understanding of information design and are.....
most importantly simply beautiful documents in their own right. Remarkably they are...
still relevant, even now over fifty years on – they are still in print and are........
reproduced in a binding and paper stock that reflects the original edition. To me.....
this series is remarkable, especially considering that A. Wainwright was in a sense...
an amateur (well, not a designer).....................................................
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I think one reason the ‘pictorial guides’ endure, the reason they are still so........
compelling is because they were so lovingly created. This is something I try to.......
instill in students when I teach, if you have a real passion for your subject, a......
commitment and drive that really pushes you then no one else will be as expert........
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A. Wainwright’s pictorial guides are by no means perfect, his prose style is rarely...
striking and there is a little too much philosophy about the lure of the Fells but in.
terms of design, information and enduring relevance I consider his work is second to..
none..................................................................................
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