Event
Maximum Meaning, Minimum Means – The Life and Work of Abram Games
Thursday 6 July 2023
An illustrated talk about one of the most celebrated graphic designers of the 20th century
A free talk by Naomi Games in the D'Arcy Thompson Lecture Theatre, Tower Building.
Abram Games was one of 20th century Britain’s most innovative and important graphic designers. With a career spanning sixty years he produced some of Britain’s most enduring images, which are now a fascinating record of social history.
During the Second World War, when he designed 100 posters, he was uniquely appointed ‘Official War Poster Artist’. After the war, he created posters for Shell, London Transport, Guinness, the Financial Times, the British Overseas Airways Corporation and British Airways. He designed the first animated ident for BBC television (1953), the covers of Penguin Books and the emblems for the Festival of Britain (1951) and the Queen’s Award for Industry (1965). Games also created postage stamps issued in Britain, Jersey and Israel.
To accompany our graphic design exhibition Got the Message?, Abram's daughter Naomi Games will talk about her father’s personal philosophy of ‘maximum meaning, minimum means’ that gave his works their distinctive conceptual and visual quality. She will relate personal anecdotes, show his designs and progressive sketches, and will explain his working process.