In Memory of Two Kings of Graphic Design

The Two Kings of Graphic Design: David King (1943 - 2016)

and David A. King (1948 - 2019) [1]

 

 

I. 

 

When I was informed that the next SIG meeting would be on the graphic designer Dave King, I assumed we were going to be speaking about the British artist who assembled a huge collection of old school Soviet imagery and propaganda; photographs, posters, and other materials commemorating and celebrating the Russian Revolution (1917) [2].

 

King, a self-confessed communist with Trotskyist leanings, was particularly keen to insert his hero back into the picture after Leon's name and image were comprehensively erased by Stalin from Soviet history and after Trotsky was physically eliminated by a Spanish-born NKVD agent who used an ice pick to make his ears burn [3], in an operation known as Operation Duck (August 1940).    

 

Despite his political leanings, King worked for many years at The Sunday Times Magazine as a designer and art editor and designed book covers for mainstream publishers, such as Penguin, alongside more radical presses.

 

But King is perhaps best remembered as the man who designed many famous album covers - including the controversial cover for Electric Ladyland (1968) by Jimi Hendrix, featuring a photo of 19 naked women by David Montgomery [4] - as well as his graphics in support of the political causes he supported, such as the Anti-Nazi League's red arrow logo on a yellow background (see figure 1 below). 

 

King died, aged, 73, in 2016.  

 

In 2020, Yale University Press published Rick Poynor's book David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian. Poynor, in collaboration with the editorial designer and art director Simon Esterson, also set up a website featuring designs by King from his private archives.

 

 

II.

 

My assumption, however, was mistaken: the Subcultures Interest Group is, rather, going to be discussing the work of David Anthony King; an English American artist and another key figure in the history of graphic design, famously creating the cross and serpent symbol by which the anarcho-hippie band Crass are recognised around the world. 

 

An Essex boy born and bred, King fell in with Penny Rimbaud and Gee Vaucher in 1964, when studying graphic design at a technical college in Dagenham. Later, in the 1970s, he would move into Dial House, the commune set up by the above in rural North Weald and it was here he came up with the iconic emblem (see figure 2 below).

 

In 1977, King moved to NYC and became part of the punk scene there, both as a designer and a musician. Later, he relocated to San Francisco and, in 1990, enrolled at San Francisco Art Institute, where he studied drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, and poetry, producing a substantial body of work in numerous mediums over the next four decades.

 

King's graphics are now a regular feature of exhibitions showcasing punk visual art in galleries worldwide and several collections of his work have been published, including, most recently, David King Publications 1977 - 2019 (Colpa Press, 2024), which comes with an interesting introduction by Matt Borruso as well as plenty of images to enjoy [5].

 

King died, aged 71, in 2019. 

 

He is fondly remembered, however, by those who have long championed scrapbooks, photocopied fanzines, print-on-demand books, mail art, etc. For if anything was at the heart of the punk ethos it was surely the notion of DIY and not caring about anything other than putting one's ideas and images into the world (often at great personal cost and with no thought of financial reward or commercial success).   

 

Fig. 1: David King Anti-Nazi League logo (1977)

Fig. 2: David A. King Crass symbol (1977)

    

Notes

 

[1] The photo of David King is by Anthony Oliver for Eye magazine, issue 48, (2003). The photo of David A. King is by Sean Clark (2016).

 

[2] King assembled more than 250,000 items in a collection which has formed the basis for a series of exhibitions and a special gallery in the Tate Modern. 

      Stephen F. Cohen, a professor of Russian studies, described King's work as 'a one-man archaeological expedition into the lost world, the destroyed world, of the original Soviet leadership. He was determined to unearth everything that Stalin had buried so deeply and so bloodily.'

 

[3] Technically, Trotsky was killed with an ice axe and not an ice pick, but I'm referring here to the lyric of the song 'No More Heroes' by the English rock band the Stranglers. The track was released as a single from an album of the same title in September 1977 (United Artists) and reached number 8 in the UK Singles Chart. Click here to play.

 

[4] King attempted to justify his design for the Hendrix album, Electric Ladyland (1968), by arguing it contrasted with the unrealistic and often airbrushed images of nude women found in magazines such as Playboy. Montgomery's photo, however, was deemed too risqué for the US edition of the album and was replaced by a picture of Hendrix. 

[5] This book was published in conjunction with an exhibition of King's work held at the San Francisco Center for the Book, from 25 October until 22 December, 2024. Matt Borruso explains in his introduction: 

      "The exhibition and book collect a chronological sampling of the publishing work that King made over his lifetime, in addition to flyers, photographs, and graphic design projects. But neither the show nor the book are in any way complete. We are still digging through King's archive, consistently finding new things that he made, and piecing together a better picture of his life and work." 

      Click here for more details and to purchase a copy.

 

 

London Squawking: The Rise of the Ring-Necked Parakeet

 Who's a pretty boy then? 

Photo by Tim Blackburn / PA

I.

Originally from Africa, the bright green ring-necked parakeet that now thrives in London and SE England, is one invasive species that we can all welcome; for surely everyone loves parrots which make a colourful (if rather noisy) addition to British wildlife.  

Well, probably not everyone, but I don't wish to discuss those who hate parrots here; I would like, rather, to discuss the question of how the tropical birds were introduced into the UK, as this has been a subject of contention and, indeed, urban legend ...


II.

One such legend, for example, traces their origin to a pair released by Jimi Hendrix on Carnaby Street, in the heart of Swinging London, in 1968.

Another slightly less groovy story suggests that the parrots arrived seventeen years earlier, when Humphrey Bogart and Katharine Hepburn were in Town to film scenes for The African Queen (1951) and various exotic animals were required on set by director John Huston, some of which - including the parrots - are believed to have escaped.*  

Alas, it seems that neither of the above legends relating to the origins of the UK's parakeets are true; at least not according to a team of academic researchers at Queen Mary University (London) who have looked into the question.

Their work has led them to conclude (rather mundanely) that the booming parakeet population has grown from multiple small-scale releases, some of which were accidental and others due to the intentional actions of nervous pet owners worried by sensational media reports of parrot fever (psittacosis) dating back to the 1930s. 

However they got here, we should be grateful and happy to have the birds (along with the 33 other countries that this avian migrant has made a home in). Those who call for a cull of the parrots due to expanding numbers - and who often express false concerns about their impact on native species - should, in my view, be tarred and feathered. And then shot.  

I would fully endorse what the author Nick Hunt writes here:

"In an age of climate emergency, with mass extinction ripping apart the fabric of the living world, when the dominant narrative of our times is one of loss and disappearance, collapse and diminishment, parakeets tell a different story. These plucky newcomers beat the odds, not only surviving but thriving. In a nature-depleted culture, when city dwellers are supposedly alienated from the environment and anything that is feral or wild, parakeets are the subject of outlandish speculation, the source of mystery, imagination and everyday wonder."**

     

Notes

* Although much of the movie was shot on location in Uganda and the Congo, many scenes were, in fact, filmed at Isleworth Studios, in Middlesex.

** Nick Hunt, 'The great green expansion: how ring-necked parakeets took over London', The Guardian (6 June 2019): click here to read online.

See also: Nick Hunt and Tim Mitchell, The Parakeeting of London, (Paradise Road, 2019). 

On the Politics of Knitting

Matthew Dyck and Ayame Ulrich 

The Uniter (Volume 67, Number 13)

In an interview in which he discusses the delights (and importance) of idleness, Roland Barthes interestingly touches upon the question of knitting.

Knitting, says Barthes, is like amateur painting; "an absolutely gratuitous activity, corporal, aesthetic ... and truly restful at the same time". It's an authentic and affirmative form of laziness, "because there's no pride or narcissism involved".

In fact, knitting might be thought of as the epitome of euphoric idleness (unless of course one is gripped by utilitarian desire to actually finish a piece of work); a perfect example of a manual activity that opens up a simple yet successful form of freedom.

Unfortunately, knitting has been increasingly marginalized within our society. Something that is acceptable only if done by elderly women. Thus, as Barthes goes on to suggest (without too much irony), perhaps one of the most unconventional and, therefore, most scandalous things would be for a young person, particularly a young man, to pull out some needles in a public space and openly begin to knit.

Strangely enough, three decades after Barthes playfully imagined this revolt into handicraft, it came to pass as young punks, goths, and bearded hipsters suddenly became more interested in cross-stitch patterns and yarn bombing, than those more traditional activities associated with alternative lifestyles. (When they weren't busy baking, of course ...!)

Unsurprisingly, not everyone was amused or impressed by this development. The late Steven Wells, for example, wrote in a piece for The Guardian that the very idea of radical knitting is "as absurd as radical dusting or radical toilet cleaning" and that it signals the death not only of youth culture, but of feminism.

However, whilst it's true that Germaine Greer "didn't articulate her disgust with women's oppression by knitting a lavender and yellow toilet-roll holder" and that "Jimi Hendrix didn't take to the stage at Woodstock wearing a nice orange and puce cardigan", I think it just as ludicrous to propose sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll as being the revolutionary solutions to all life's problematic aspects - surely no one really believes this any longer, do they?

Ultimately, I don't care how people choose to articulate their lives and express their politics; it's all good, providing it's done with style, with humour, and without any trace of ascetic militancy. What I don't have time for is the attempt to establish hierarchies in which certain acts, arts, or pleasures are privileged and others denigrated and despised.


Notes

Roland Barthes, 'Dare to Be Lazy', from an interview conducted by Christine Eff, in The Grain of the Voice, trans. Linda Coverdale, (University of California Press, 1991), pp. 338-45. The lines quoted are on pp. 340-41.

Those interested in reading the Steven Wells Guardian article (14 June, 2008) should click here. 

This year's World Wide Knit in Public Day is on Saturday 18 June, 2016. Click here for details.  

This post is dedicated to CheyOnna Sewell and the women of The Yarn Mission.