Andrew Davidson

Andrew Davidson belongs to a long distinguished line of British artists, illustrators and designers, whose work once enriched almost everything that was printed. He keeps alive a tradition which owes nothing to transitory fashions or the latest gadgetry, but which is based on the irreplaceable disciplines of objective drawing, a strong sense of design and the tactile pleasures of craftsmanship. Even as a young student at Norwich School of Art, Andrew's work and those of his contemporaries gained strength from a solid academic base which underpinned innovation and experimentation. It showed a highly developed vision and the emergence of the necessary skills to develop it, as well as the element of magic and poetry which fills his work today.



On leaving Norwich he became a student in the graphic design department at the Royal College of Art where one of his tutors was Brian Tattersfield, then one of the partners of the highly successful Minale Tattersfield Design Group and one of Andrew's earliest mentors.

In the summer prior to arriving in London, he had been a crew member of a sailing ship, at sea around the Scottish coast. It was obviously a stirring and unforgettable experience, which fuelled him with enough material to fire his inspiration for almost the next three years. He was stubbornly and admirably single-minded in the approach to his subject. Others might have taken the easy route and developed the skills they already had. Instead Andrew discovered the wood block, whose uncompromising qualities he tackled, crudely at first, but gaining skill and confidence with each successive attempt.

Andrew engraves endgrain blocks of English boxwood using small chisels, spitstickers and scorpers, and only the untouched surface prints black. Because no two sheets of handmade paper are the same, each print is unique. Under a magnifying glass, all the individual qualities can be seen.

By the time he graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1982 he was a highly developed artist and designer and quickly gained commissions from a great variety of sources. For Minale Tattersfield he illustrated packaging for a large range of natural food products for Boots, which have since been endlessly imitated. The finely tuned sense of design and integrity of approach make Andrew particularly adept at creating imagery for packaging and he has a long list of clients in this field.

Perhaps Andrew's most important early commission was from John McConnell of Pentagram who asked him to illustrate The Iron Man by Ted Hughes, for Faber and Faber. His work on this book brought together all of his skills, the most dominant being his dramatic sense of design which more than anything else gives so much life to his work. It is in the early stages of an artists's career that the importance of a single commission can change or enhance that career. The combination of absolute suitability of assignment, together with a client who is confident of their own ability to commission the right artist, and then allow the artist to perform to the best of their ability may seem to be stating the obvious, but it is an unfortunately rare occurrence.

Whilst the early work was mostly engraving, with occasional hand-tinting, it was a full colour commission from David Stuart of The Partners which really established his now signature colour style. A series of pub signs to be reproduced as one-offs in vitreous enamel and hung outside the individual pubs as part of a major chain. The illustrations were awarded a D&AD Silver award for illustration in 1987 and have been very influential in the establishment of his reputation for illustration that is very finely tuned with a real graphic design skill. They sprang out of the very best tradition of British Poster Design, from an age when the restrictions of colour printing brought about a language that made the most of the the resources available and which had rather been superceded by full colour process printing.

Andrew is absolutely at his best when there is a thought process involved and where he is involved in problem solving. He is an artist that enjoys intensely the satisfaction that is gained from collaborating with an Art Director and is very content to be acknowledged as a team player. It is this aspect of his work that has led to what has become possibly his most prolific vein of work. That of corporate imagery. He is regularly commissioned on a day-rate basis for the initial development which then leads to full implementation after an image is developed. But through all of this an obvious "heart" shines out of his work.

Whether it is a whole series of illustrations required for a corporate annual report, or a single image to be used in a corporate logo, the attention to detail that Andrew brings to the table remains the same. He acknowledges that it is far harder to commission illustration than photography and that there needs to be a subtler communication of intent. Clients who might never have commissioned illustration before, find that working with this consummate professional is a completely pleasurable experience as can be evidenced by the large numbers of regular clients that he has acquired over the years.

An understanding of the thought processes involved in design by an illustrator brings obvious benefits and that particular talent is not one that can be taken for granted.

A particularly enjoyable commission has been that by Paul Buckley of Penguin USA for the re-jacketing of the entire John Steinbeck series. A restrained and tasteful design beautifully offsets the considered and exquisitely rendered engravings.

Since then he has been involved in many important projects for publishing, advertising and most significantly for the Royal Mail, illustrating several ranges of stamps. A commission to produce stamp designs is one of the most coveted amongst designers and illustrators, as they are well aware of the wide usage and attendant publicity that the commission brings. Andrew's ability to distil the essence of a subject and make it work at the reduced size of a postage stamp have ensured that he has remained constantly on that particular design roster.

Andrew Davidson lives with is wife Julia, a trained midwife and therapist (according to Andrew, she needs to be) and two young sons deep in the Cotswold countryside, in a charming house right at the bottom of a not very accessible track. At the very foot of its garden a custom built studio, part tree-house, designed by Andrew and constructed of English Oak is where Andrew can be found working long hours, in his own words "in his imagination."