John Lewis (1912–1996) was a printer, illustrator and collector of printed

ephemera Ephemera are transitory creations which are not meant to be retained or preserved. Its etymological origins extends to Ancient Greece, with the common definition of the word being: "the minor transient documents of everyday life". Ambiguous in ...

Information

Lewis was educated at

Charterhouse Charterhouse may refer to: * Charterhouse (monastery), of the Carthusian religious order Charterhouse may also refer to: Places * The Charterhouse, Coventry, a former monastery * Charterhouse School, an English public school in Surrey London ...

and Goldsmiths', where his contemporaries included

Denton Welch Maurice Denton Welch (29 March 1915 – 30 December 1948) was a British writer and painter, admired for his vivid prose and precise descriptions. Life Welch was born in Shanghai, China, to Arthur Joseph Welch, a wealthy British rubber merchant, ...

and

Carel Weight Carel Victor Morlais Weight, (10 September 1908 – 13 August 1997) was an English painter. Biography Weight was born in Paddington in 1908. His father was a bank cashier and his mother, who was of Swedish and German descent, was a chirop ...

. From 1951 to 1963 he taught

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art whose activity consists in projecting visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdiscipli ...

at the

Royal College of Art The Royal College of Art (RCA) is a public research university in London, United Kingdom, with campuses in South Kensington, Battersea and White City. It is the only entirely postgraduate art and design university in the United Kingdom. It offe ...

. With

Michael Twyman Michael Twyman (born 1934) is a Professor Emeritus of the Department of Typography & Graphic Communication at the University of Reading. He joined the university staff in 1959. He established a BA (Hons) course in Typography & Graphic Communicati ...

and Maurice Rickards, he was a pioneer in the study of printed

, and in 1962 published the first major book in the field, ''Printed Ephemera: the changing uses of type and letterforms in English and American printing''. In the 1960s Lewis also edited an influential series of paperbacks for

Studio Vista Studio Vista was a British publishing company founded in 1961 that specialised in leisure and design topics. In the 1960s, the firm published works by a number of authors that went on to be noted designers. History Studio Vista was founded by Ceci ...

in the UK and Reinhold in the US, including authors such as

Peter Cook Peter Edward Cook (17 November 1937 – 9 January 1995) was an English actor, comedian, satirist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the leading figure of the British satire boom of the 1960s, and he was associated with the anti-establishme ...

Theo Crosby Theo Crosby (3 April 1925 – 12 September 1994) was an architect, editor, writer and sculptor, engaged with major developments in design across four decades. He was also an early vocal critic of modern urbanism. He is best remembered as a found ...

, Alan Fletcher,

Ken Garland Ken Garland (19 February 1929 – 20 May 2021) was a British graphic designer, photographer, writer and educator. Garland is known for his writing on design and the prolific work of his studio Ken Garland & Associates. Early life and education ...

, Bob Gill,

Norman Potter Norman Arthur Potter (17 April 1923 – 22 November 1995) was a cabinetmaker, political dissident, poet and author of ''What is a Designer?'' Life By trade, Potter was a cabinetmaker and designer, a minimalist decades before the term becam ...

, David Pye,

Paul Rand Paul Rand (born Peretz Rosenbaum; August 15, 1914 – November 26, 1996) was an American art director and graphic designer, best known for his corporate logo designs, including the logos for IBM, UPS, Enron, Morningstar, Inc., Westinghouse, ...

and

Alison and Peter Smithson Alison Margaret Smithson (22 June 1928 – 14 August 1993) and Peter Denham Smithson (18 September 1923 – 3 March 2003) were English architects who together formed an architectural partnership, and are often associated with the New Brutalism ...

. The John Lewis Printing Collection of more than 20,000 items from the fifteenth to the twentieth century is held at

Reading University The University of Reading is a public university in Reading, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1892 as University College, Reading, a University of Oxford extension college. The institution received the power to grant its own degrees in 192 ...

Selected works

* 1947 ''A Handbook of Printing Types'' * 1954 ''Graphic Design: with special reference to lettering, typography and illustration'' * 1962 ''Printed Ephemera: the changing uses of type and letterforms in English and American printing'' * 1964 (with Bob Gill) ''Illustration: aspects and directions'' * 1965 ''Typography: basic principles'' * 1966 ''Handbook of Type and Illustration'' * 1967 ''The Twentieth Century Book: its illustration and design'' * 1976 ''Collecting Printed Ephemera: a background to social habits and social history, to eating and drinking, to travel and heritage'' * 1978 ''Typography: design and practice'' * 1994 ''Such Things Happen: the life of a typographer''

References

External links

* * * 1912 births 1996 deaths English typographers and type designers English graphic designers British designers People educated at Charterhouse School Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London Academics of the Royal College of Art {{graphic-designer-stub