# Bob Gill (artist)

Robert Charles Gill (January 17, 1931 – November 9, 2021) was an American illustrator, graphic designer and author. He was known for his work with Fletcher/Forbes/Gill as a designer, his production work on films by the animator, Ray Harryhausen and as an author. His book "Forget All the Rules You Ever Learned About Graphic Design—Including the Ones in This Book" was first published in 1981 and was according to Steve Heller of Print magazine, "It vividly represented Gill’s irrepressible, rebellious wit". The Branvetica said of the book: "...encapsulated his philosophy that design should be about solving problems creatively rather than adhering to established norms."

## Early life and education

Robert Charles Gill was born on January 17, 1931, in Brooklyn, New York.
Gill played the piano at summer resorts in the Catskill Mountains, New York, to pay his school tuition. He attended the Philadelphia Museum School of Art (1948–1951), Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (1951), City College of New York (1952, 1955). When he graduated he became a professional graphic designer in New York City.

## Career

Gill acted as a film title designer also referred to as a production designer for several films of Ray Harryhausen.
In 1960 after an interview in a New York hotel room for a job in London, he moved to the UK to work for Charles Hobson.
April Fool's Day, 1962, Gill, Alan Fletcher and Colin Forbes established Fletcher/Forbes/Gill design studio, the forerunner of Pentagram. F/F/G soon outgrew their small studio and moved into a huge Victorian former gun factory on a canal. On discussing its founding he telling Eye Magazine in 1999:
   I met Forbes through Fletcher – they were working in Forbes's apartment as freelancers sharing expenses. This was after becoming disenchanted with the agency. It was a strange situation because if I had told Nicholas Kaye (the owner of the agency, who liked to think of me as his son) I was going to quit, as kind as he was and as generous as he was, he could have had me assassinated.
   And then I had an inspiration. I went to him after Fletcher, Forbes and I decided to get together and I said: “Nicholas – let’s quit” and he said: “What are you talking about?” I said “Let’s get out of here and start a design office.”
   Well, he was so moved by the fact I wanted to take him with me so he said: “No, you go. I’ll finance it and I’ll feed work to it from the agency – packaging and so forth, and I’ll be a silent partner – I don’t want my name on it."
They started the British British Design and Art Direction, now known as the Designers and Art Directors Association and abbreviated as D&AD in 1962. He would go onto influence 1960s music by telling his then assistant, Charlie Watts that he was better drummer than a designer.
In 1967, Gill left the partnership and assumed independent freelancing again, including teaching, filmmaking and writing children's books. He returned to New York in 1975 to write and design Beatlemania, the largest multimedia musical up to that time on Broadway, on which he worked with Robert Rabinowitz. He also proposed a peace monument for Times Square, Gill wanted to collect military junk from all over the world, pile it 40 feet high, spray it matte black, and mount it on a block of white marble. The New York City Fine Arts Commission did not like the idea.
For his graphic design work, Gill has won a number of awards, sold illustrations to Esquire, Architectural Forum, Fortune, Seventeen, and The Nation magazines and has illustrated children's books and designed film titles. He has also designed for Apple Corps records, Rainbow Theatre, Pirelli, Nestlé, CBS, Universal Pictures, Joseph Losey, Queen (now Harpers & Queen), High Times magazines and the United Nations. He was elected to the New York Art Directors Club Hall of Fame in 1991 and the Designers and Art Directors Association of London has presented him with their Lifetime Achievement Award.

## Death and legacy

He lived in New York with his wife, New York Public Radio's Sara Fishko. They had a son, Jack Gill, and a daughter, Kate Gill. Gill died on November 9, 2021, in Brooklyn, aged 90.

## Teaching posts

* 1955–1960, School of Visual Arts (SVA), Manhattan
* 1959, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn
* 1967–1969, Central School of Art and Design, London
* 1969, Chelsea School of Art (now Chelsea College of Art and Design), London
* 1970–1975, Royal College of Art (RCA), London
* 1972–1974, Hornsey School of Art, London
* 1981–1983, Parsons School of Design (now Parsons The New School for Design), Manhattan
* 1992–1994, School of Visual Arts (SVA), Manhattan
* 2003–2011, Graduate Communications Department, Pratt Institute, Manhattan

## Awards (partial)

* 1955, Gold Medal, New York Art Directors Club, for a CBS television title, US
* 1999, President's Award, D&AD (British Design & Art Direction), UK

## Books written

* Bob Gill's Portfolio, Amsterdam: Wim Crouwel / Stedelijk Museum, 1967
* Bob Gill’s Portfolio, London: Lund Humphries, 1968
* I Keep Changing, New York: Scroll Press, 1971. | ISBN 0-87592-025-X)
* Bob Gill's New York, London: Kynoch Press, 1971.
* Ups & Downs, Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1974.
* Forget All the Rules You Ever Learned About Graphic Design, Including the Ones in this Book, New York: Watson-Guptill, 1981. | ISBN 0-8230-1863-6
* Graphic Design Made Difficult, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1992. | ISBN 0-442-01098-2
* Unspecial Effects for Graphic Designers, New York: Graphis, 2001 | ISBN 1-931241-00-7
* Graphic Design as a Second Language, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2003 | ISBN 1-920744-39-8
* Illustration, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2004 | ISBN 1-920744-73-8
* LogoMania, Gloucester: Rockport Publishers, 2006 | ISBN 1-59253-252-7
* Words into Pictures, Victoria: Images Publishing Group, 2009 | ISBN 1-86470-326-1
* Bob Gill, so far., London: Laurence King Publishing, 2011 | ISBN 1-85669-819-X