Project description
David Platts is an English artist – a celebrated painter, printmaker and designer – a gifted draughtsman and colourist who is widely known for his abstract painting. In 2018 Ben Galloway was commissioned to create a new website for the artist to showcase a lifetime of work. This project provided the opportunity to rethink David’s logotype. The name ‘David Platts’ as it appears in print is synonymous with both the painter and his work. Implicitly, the artist is the brand and the brand is the artist and it follows therefore, that any arbitrary graphic or logo in the conventional sense, would be a contrivance. Something that established the artist’s identity simply and directly without embellishment was required – whimsical invention on the part of the designer… to be avoided at all cost.
The designer’s job is sometimes to see what is right in front of him, to recognise the simple purity of a solution and not over work it. Or, conversely, (and more usually), to overwork it to the point where chaos ensues but then to be able to pare it back – to dispense with extraneous detail and to retrace it to the purity of the original thought – a palimpsest in reverse. It is through this process of continual revision and rejection that the coherence and clarity of the concept can truly be weighed.
David’s logo is deceptively simple in that two pairs of letters are joined to create a dynamic energy within the script. We especially like the joining of the ‘T’s with it subtle allusion to the symbol for Pi and even the artist’s easel or table. Beyond that, no illusory artifice was required. The work is done by the choice of font, ‘Questrial’ and the colour, the artist’s favourite, ‘Klein Blue’. David Platts is reluctant to talk about his work as he believes very strongly that the work should speak for itself. This simple device is consciously consistent with that philosophy and helps establish a brand without nuance or secondary meaning.
David Platts says:
Ben Galloway has given me an attentive, caring and skilled, professional graphic design service at all times. He is ready always to thoughtfully interpret any ideas that I may suggest regarding design or layout, adding his own individual, creative input, to bring together a perfect solution to the design project in hand. I am more than pleased with all the work that Ben has completed for me.
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