Mike Dempsey came into work a couple of weeks ago to tell us about his inspirations and career. Mike is probably best known for being a founding member of CDT and also for his work on Royal Mail stamps. It’s taken me a little while to put this post together as Mike’s work isn’t that easy to find online, he seems to be a very modest chap and doesn’t often write about his own work. Even so, he was President of the D&AD in 1997 and has a fair few of those coveted pencils on his mantlepiece. He showed us some things which I’ve simply been unable to find online, so you won’t be seeing those. Sorry.

The talk took the form of a journey through his career from his earliest memories of discovering graphic design through the work of Josef Muller Brockmann to his subsequent enrolment on a local Calligraphy & Illuminated Lettering evening class to find out more. At that stage, he told us, he wasn’t even aware that there was such a ‘job’ as graphic design.

He started out designing book covers. He’d take books home from the library and redesign a better cover, just like the kids do online now. He took a portfolio of those to job interviews and found his way into work as a book cover designer. Over the years he designed covers for books and albums, as well as posters. He hungrily consumed all the influences and trends happening around him, including the groovetastic Pushpin in the swinging sixties:

“There’s nothing wrong with copying. Eventually you find your own personality but it takes a while”

These are his Fontana Modern Masters covers, a series which he simplified and based on a white background, admitting that he had even forgotten about art directing them until their recent renaissance. You can clearly see what he took from the sixties Pushpin aesthetic here.

“I’m as curious now as when I started as a 17 year old”

After founding CDT in 1979, he designed the fantastic English National opera logo:

As well as art directing the Royal Mail’s series of Millennium stamps in 1999. These subsequent ‘Sounds of Britain’ stamps show a clear influence from Apple’s iPod ads but are still lovely.

And Mike has kept working since leaving CDT, starting Studio Dempsey in 2008 to work on “projects I have a feeling for, for people that I like.” The projects have ranged from these stamps immortalising 10 British albums which broke the mould (die cut to show the vinyl spilling out…)

…to this understated logo for Beautiful Books…

“Being simple is quite difficult”

Mike is an active participant in the grassroots of the industry and has some strong opinions. His entry in last year’s Type Tarts exhibition was the only piece actually highlighting the misery of sex trafficking amongst the suggestive student innuendo. His contribution to The Art of Lost Words project was a little more upbeat:

MOLROWING: n. caterwauling; cavorting (as with prostitutes)

And his response to the D&AD’s 2007 flag project was pretty clear…

The main things I took away from the talk was that Mike didn’t get any real formal training in graphic design, he didn’t follow the established route, he just got out there, started doing it and eagerly learned everything he could. That was all very reassuring. People over in the Shillington College thread take note. He’s still doing it today, getting to grips with new technologies on one of his 5 Macs, through websites some of his contemporaries have still never heard of such as Ffffound!

Also, Mike hasn’t been afraid to copy great work. Perhaps ‘copy’ is a bit harsh (although that’s the word he used himself) but learn from great practitioners and investigate their work and influences. I was reminded of a quote I heard recently:

“It doesn’t matter where you take it from, only where to take it to…”

…which seemed to fit well.

These days in between design projects, Mike travels around interviewing great designers for the RSA’s RDInsights project which is well worth a listen. there seems to be no end to his curiosity – in fact, he says that his next wish is to direct a film:

“I’m fickle, I get bored easily and I’m not afraid to make mistakes.”

And his advice for aspiring graphic designers?

“Absorb. And please don’t just hang out with other graphic designers.”

You can join Mike’s graphic journey on his blog.