Robert Brownjohn | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | (1925-08-08)August 8, 1925 |
| Died | August 1, 1970(1970-08-01) (aged 44) London, England |
| Occupation(s) | Graphic designer, title designer |
Robert Brownjohn (August 8, 1925 – August 1, 1970) was an Americangraphic designer known for blending formal graphic design concepts with wit and 1960s pop culture. He is best known for hismotion picturetitle sequences, especiallyFrom Russia with Love andGoldfinger.
He was born to British parents on August 8, 1925, inNewark, New Jersey, where his father was abus driver. In 1937, at age 12, his father died.[1] Despite the comparative disinclination of his family, Brownjohn showed early artistic promise. After attending thePratt Institute in nearbyBrooklyn, New York, for a year, he earned a place at theInstitute of Design inChicago, Illinois, formerly known as the NewBauhaus by founderLászló Moholy-Nagy, in 1944.
Regarded as a prodigy by his peers, Brownjohn became a protégé of Moholy-Nagy and his successor,Serge Chermayeff; much of the structural quality in Brownjohn's graphic design can be traced to the former's important influence. In his spare time, he experimented withmarijuana andheroin (culminating in an early rehabilitation stint at the behest of Chermayeff) and often frequented the city'sjazz clubs with Chermayeff andBuckminster Fuller, then an Institute faculty member. Because of his proclivities, Brownjohn became intimately acquainted withCharlie Parker,Billie Holiday and other musicians of the era.
After receiving a nonprofessionalB.A. in architecture in May 1948,[2] Brownjohn initially worked as an architectural planner in Chicago before returning to the Institute (which had been absorbed as a unit of theIllinois Institute of Technology in 1949) to assist Chermayeff and teach his own courses in the school's evening division. He also worked as a freelance designer for several magazines, includingEsquire andCoronet.
In 1951, Brownjohn returned toNew York City in order to further his graphic design career. Continuing to work freelance for the next five years, he completed projects for a wide variety of clients, includingColumbia Records. Brownjohn's effusive personality and fondness for jazz music allowed his friendships with Parker andMiles Davis, among others, to blossom as he became a part of the bohemian social scene in the city. Brownjohn also became addicted to heroin in earnest during this period. He was never to conquer this affliction and it contributed to his untimely death at the age of 44.
In 1956, Brownjohn married Donna Walters. The couple went on to have a daughter, Eliza. The following year, Brownjohn formed Brownjohn, Chermayeff & Geismar (BCG) with fellow designersIvan Chermayeff (a son of Brownjohn's mentor) andTom Geismar. BCG designed for print initially, producing experiments in typographical design as well as taking on commercial projects. Amongst the experimental work was the booklet,Watching Words Move, in which words were redesigned to suggest their meaning in graphical as well as literal terms, e.g. "+dd", "-tract" and "sexxx". In 1958 BCG won the commission to design the United States' stand at theBrussels World's Fair. BCG also counted thePepsi-Cola Company amongst its largest clients at this time. In addition to designing the company magazine, it also created the widely hailed Christmas decorations for Pepsi's New York headquarters. During this period, he also taught advanced advertising design as anadjunct professor at Pratt andCooper Union.
The end of 1959 saw the end of BCG. Brownjohn's drug use had escalated and he moved to London with his family in order, he hoped, to take advantage of the UK's more liberal attitude to drug use.[3] Following Brownjohn's departure, the company (known asChermayeff & Geismar & Haviv today) became known for its seminalcorporate identity programs.
As one of the most fêted and socially connected designers from New York, Brownjohn fitted into theSwinging London scene effortlessly. He initially worked at theJ. Walter Thompson advertising agency before leaving the firm to joinMcCann Erickson in 1962. It was in this year that Donna left Brownjohn, taking daughter Eliza, and moved toIbiza.
Brownjohn's career began to shift to working primarily with moving images. In 1963, the producers of theJames Bond films approached Brownjohn after disagreements with film title designerMaurice Binder.[4]Harry Saltzman asked Brownjohn to design the title sequence for the secondJames Bond film,From Russia with Love.[5]
Robert Brownjohn's work on two James Bond title sequences,From Russia with Love andGoldfinger, is probably his most widely known achievement. In these he used the technique of projecting moving footage onto the bodies of models and filming the results. The idea of filming projections is one gleaned from the Bauhaus and was used by László Maholy-Nagy in his earlyconstructivist films of the 1920s.[3] The combination of this artistic technique with the style and glamour of the 1960s typify Brownjohn's work. The use of wit and risqué humour, for example the deliberate lining up of a projected shot of a golf putt so that the ball appears to roll down gold painted modelMargaret Nolan's cleavage, are also classic Brownjohn devices.
Goldfinger's title design, photographed byDavid Watkin cost £5000. Brownjohn also designed the British posters for the film featuring Sean Connery and Honor Blackman over a gold painted Margaret Nolan. A second poster, featuring the characters in a golden hand, was designed for Ireland.[6] Eventually Saltzman and Brownjohn fell out, and Brownjohn worked on no other Bond films.[7]
In all, Robert Brownjohn designed four title sequences:[8]
The most notable work from Brownjohn's post-Bond career is probably the cover for the 1969Rolling Stones albumLet It Bleed.[1] He also created moving graphics forMidland Bank andPirelli between 1966 and 1970. His final piece of graphic design was a poster for the New York Peace Campaign in 1969: an ace of spades playing card is laid on a plain white background with the letters "PE" hastily scribbled to the left of it and a question mark to the right. Brownjohn also had a small role as a fur coat-clad heavy inDick Clement's filmOtley.
Brownjohn died from a heart attack in London on August 1, 1970, a week shy of his 45th birthday.[1]
Born in Newark, New Jersey, in 1925, Brownjohn, whose father, a bus driver, died when he was 12, studied art at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn before enrolling at the Institute of Design in Chicago in 1944. ...
| International | |
|---|---|
| National | |
| Artists | |
| People | |
| Other | |
