Richard Eckersley: It would seem to be a strange twist of fate that both Richard Eckersley and the Italian designer Germano Facetti (art director of Penguin Books 1961-72) would have their obituaries posted in this newspaper within weeks of each other.
Both men were friends. Facetti redesigned the programme which directed the distinguished typographic tradition of Penguin and Pelican books. Richard transformed the book design programme of the University of Nebraska Press, gaining for it international recognition. Richard Eckersley passed away, at his home in Lincoln, Nebraska on April 16th, aged 65.
Richard Hilton Eckersley, born in Lancashire in 1941, was the son of Tom Eckersley (OBE), the poster designer, who is regarded as one of the famous four second World War designers along with Enron, Schleger and Abram Games. Tom was head of design at the London College of Printing (LCP). Richard and his Swedish wife Dika studied design at that college following Richard's completion of his studies in English and Italian literature at Trinity College Dublin.
The "tradition" of following a path in design went further than Richard with his brothers, Tony and Paul, also taking the same career. Although two generations of Eckersleys have now passed on, Sam, Richard's only son has chosen that same path working as a theatre graphic designer in New York.
After graduating from the LCP, Richard began his design career in London with the publishers Lund Humphries (who earlier employed design legends Jan Tschichold and Edward McKnight Kauffer).
In the 1970s Richard was attracted back to Ireland by the unique design environment of Kilkenny Design Workshops. His influence went far beyond the graphic design studio. The conceptual humour and aesthetic of his posters alone had a dramatic impact on Kilkenny Arts Week, Listowel Writers Week, and the A Sense of Ireland exhibition in London, to name but a few. Richard wrote articles and made design contributions to the international design journals, Graphis, Design, Mobelia and Print. Richard was also instrumental in starting the now defunct Irish Book Design Awards.
As a member of the original Kilkenny Arts Week committee, Richard irrevocably changed what had hitherto been a classical music festival into what would become much more. He was to bring Stan Getz, Zoot Sims, Ronnie Scott, and Marian Montgomery to Kilkenny.
However well recorded his design accolades are, much less is known of his complex and distant character - analysing a design problem in the studio at 1.00am (roll-up cigarette in hand), and 6.00am casting a fly over the river in Three Castles for an hour (where his spiritual home is) before returning to work.
Richard spent seven years in Kilkenny before taking up a year's teaching at the Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia. His design portfolio he recalled at the time "an Irish bouillabaisse, heavy on saffron, light on garlic". In 1981, Richard, made a further move to Lincoln, Nebraska.
For the next 20 years he would design countless volumes at the University of Nebraska Press. He was also active as a visiting lecturer. His work has received many accolades in both Europe and America, notably a silver medal at the Leipzig Book Fair and the Carl Herzog Book Design Award.
Perhaps the most gratifying was his designation two years ago as a Royal Designer for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts, an award which his father also received in 1963. Designers, working for an academic press, often go unnoticed in a profession that seems to be more interested in the glamorous world of promotional branding and magazine design. Design historian Roy R Behrens wrote in Print magazine that Richard's books "are characterised by typographic subtlety and restraint, the lineage of which can be easily traced to Jan Tschichold, Eric Gill, Paul Renner, and other Modern-era masters of what Geoffrey Dowding called (in the famous book) the Finer Points in the Spacing and Arrangement of Type ".
If there is one project which should be specifically mentioned it is Avital Ronell's The Telephone Book: Technology, Schizophrenia, Electric Speech. This was a radical departure in 1989 from Richard's signature approach. An unorthodox study of Jacques Derrida, Martin Heidegger and the philosophy of deconstruction. This was the first book Richard designed on the computer, giving him direct control. The text was radically altered to interpret the author's complex post-modern ideas typographically.
The reader is thrown into a confusion of variable settings where the object is to deliberately challenge the act of reading which is what Ms Ronell wanted. Page 348 sums it up with the headline "learning to speak is like learning to shoot". As design historian Stephen Heller commented: "Some designers were at the time experimenting with idiosyncratic computer type design, this was the first attempt to apply a deconstructivist style to a serious book".
Richard had a natural reserve, an air of polite detachment in spite of his distinctive appearance (purple corduroy Maoist suits, hand-tailored in Kilkenny). It was often remarked that his face bore a strikingly uncanny resemblance to the young Eamon de Valera. He will be remembered for his generosity of support for others with whom he felt affinity and affection - displaying a more caustic attitude towards those he had less tolerance for.
His passion for books derived from his paternal grandfather a Methodist minister in the north of England. As a child during wartime, all activities were restricted on the Sabbath. He said, in a quote from an interview with Roy Behrens, "That only after I washed my hands would the books be placed ceremoniously in front of me. I was taught to open the covers gently and to turn the pages by their top corners". Richard displayed that respect for the printed page throughout his life. He was a rare spirit.
Richard is survived by his wife Dika, son Sam, and two daughters Nell and Camilla.
Richard Eckersley born 1941, died April 16th, 2006