David over at SWIPE books has started a blog and it's full of all sorts of fun and idiosyncratic descriptions of his favorite books and designers. Compels one to make an order! Here is his description of Bob Gill who I posted about last week.
Bob Gill is one of the most influential figures in post-war graphic design and has the kind of biography that could easily be reimagined as a sitcom. Born in Brooklyn in 1931, Gill put himself through art school playing piano in the Catskills. In 1962, in Austin Powers’ London, he co-founded Fletcher / Forbes / Gill which today is known as Pentagram; in ‘67 he designed the first Beatles album cover for Apple Records; in ‘75 he directed a hardcore porno (Double Exposure of Holly) in New York; in ‘79 he created Beatlemania for Broadway (1006 performances); and in ‘81 he published one of the best-selling graphic design books of all time, Forget all the rules you ever learned about graphic design. Including the ones in this book. (unfortunately long out-of-print). And somewhere in between he created wonderful, whimsical children’s books, alone and in collaboration with Alastair Reid, the renowned translator of Borges and Neruda.
