Colin Forbes, a ‘Designer’s Designer,’ Is Dead at 94

The logo used by Nissan for many years was also Mr. Forbes’s work, and his designs for Pirelli, British Petroleum and other companies were familiar in their day. His career encompassed a significant expansion in the field, one that saw graphic designers go beyond logos and book covers to consulting on interior spaces, corporate identities and more — something Mr. Forbes said he never envisioned when he graduated from the Central School of Arts and Crafts in London in his 20s.

“When I came out, I presumed if you could do part-time teaching and a few book jackets, that would be Christmas,” he told The Honolulu Advertiser in 1991, when he was in Hawaii to give a talk. “So I never had a thought I could be standing up in front of the board of Neiman Marcus telling them how I could improve their business in Dallas.”

Colin Ames Forbes was born on March 6, 1928, in London to John and Kathleen (Ames) Forbes. He did his mandatory service in the British Army from 1945 to 1949, and he had an entirely different career in mind at first.

“When I came out of the Army in ’49, I had thought I was going to do aircraft engineering because ‘aircraft’ was so romantic to people of my generation,” he told The Honolulu Advertiser. Instead he took advantage of a grant program for veterans and went to the Central School of Arts and Crafts, graduating in 1952. He taught at the school for a time, but by 1960 he had left for private practice.

In 1962 he formed Fletcher/Forbes/Gill with Mr. Fletcher and Bob Gill. Their eye-catching work for Pirelli, Time Life, Penguin Books and others caught the spirit of the Swinging Sixties that was transforming popular culture in London and beyond.

“As a team,” The Independent of Britain wrote in Mr. Fletcher’s obituary in 2006, “they had an ability to combine the formal restraint of Swiss modernism with the wit of the Madison Avenue advertising industry.”

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/26/arts/design/colin-forbes-dead.html