David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
- Submitting institution
-
The University of Reading
: B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory : B - Typography and Graphic Communication
- Output identifier
- 87371
- Type
- A - Authored book
- DOI
-
-
- Publisher
- Yale University Press
- ISBN
- 9780300250107
- Open access status
- -
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2020
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This comprehensive critical study represents an intense 3-year period of collections-based research. Full access to King’s archives comprising books, magazines, posters, photographs and papers and interviews with his colleagues and collaborators enabled critical analysis of King’s visual authorship. The research also involved investigation of all the key published sources relating to King’s development as a designer and the international reception of his historical narratives. The highly-visual nature of King’s work and the comprehensively-illustrated book involved review, interrogation and selection of images and work to ensure accurate representation in printed form, which was done by the author alongside the original material.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- David King (1943-2016) is a unique figure within British graphic design and a visual author of international significance. He began his career as a visual journalist, designing The Sunday Times Magazine during a key period in its history. He worked as a freelance graphic designer and became well known for the high-impact activist posters he created for campaigning organisations such as the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Anti Nazi League. He co-authored his first book, about Trotsky, in 1972 and went on to publish highly original visual histories of Revolutionary Russia, using material from his huge private collection, which was acquired for the nation by Tate.
This critical study traces King’s exceptional trajectory and analyses the development of his visual authorship. Interviews with 27 of his colleagues and collaborators were undertaken to piece together a revealing account of his thinking, motivation and working practices. The research had full access to King’s archive of books, magazines, posters and papers, including correspondence, and undertook an investigation of all the key published sources relating to his development as a designer and the international reception of his historical narratives.
This is the first book about King and a comprehensive investigation of his complete body of work. The history of post-war British graphic design is insufficiently charted and this book – one of the few monographs of a British graphic designer – is intended to be a contribution to understanding the field. “Graphic authorship” has been posited within global design discourse since the early 1990s and this study is unusual in considering a designer’s authorship in this degree of detail. King’s work forged a vital connection between visual practice and the dissemination of historical knowledge and insight, and the book assesses his contribution from the dual perspectives of both design practice and cultural history.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -