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McCahon a designer?

by Lisa Baudry

I had always wondered when the typeface, McCahon, designed by Luke Wood back in 2003 would get an airing.

Well it’s found it’s way onto the cover of Fine Folk: Design work by Colin McCahon, an exhibition catalogue published for the exhibition of the same name curated by Natalie Poland of Hocken Collections, Dunedin late last year.

Colin McCahon a designer? The examples given in the 32-page catalogue range from set design, museum display, jewellery making, graphic art and glass design.

Apparently McCahon was educated in the Bauhaus ethos of inclusivity, you know the German school that valued the integration of art, design and life and sought to break down the hierarchy that previously separated ‘fine’ and ‘applied’ art.

Okay, so philosophically he may not have had a problem with it – but was he any good at it? I would argue his paintings are better examples of graphic art than any of the examples in this catalogue. The refinement and resolve found in his paintings show a well-developed skill in the use of pictorial space. His ability to juxtapose word and image fits entirely with the notion of powerful and effective graphic design.

It seems as though the types of graphic design projects he got to work on were either related to his personal contacts in theatre (he was a member of the New Independent Theatre) or book publishing or related to his role as ‘keeper’ at Auckland Art Gallery. As a result he is cited as designing; covers for the gallery’s published lectures, book covers and title pages for art books, novels and short stories, and theatre poster and programmes.

McCahon brought a distinctive hand-written sensibility to these projects. I can only guess that those commissioning the work, wanted a) to help McCahon out with some extra paid work and to have the chance to work with him and b) give their projects an artistic credibility and connection that going to a design company at that time would not have given them.

Would this happen now? Do painters get given graphic design work for the same reasons? Has the professionalism expected in the areas of publication design now reached a standard that only designers specialising in those areas can achieve? And do designers working now have the ability to draw on a range of visual languages and if needed adopt a hand-written, earthy approach of a similar quality to McCahon’s?

So about that font. I can see why Wood never released it as a licensed font. Can you imagine McCahon’s script turning itself into advertising and branding messages? He has endorsed the use of his font in the instance of this catalogue, which is exactly the kind of place McCahon’s own design work emerged – art publishing. Kind of fitting really.