Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography

by Emily King, Eliza Brownjohn

The design profession doesn't produce many larger-than-life figures. Robert BrownjohnBJ, to just about everyone who knew him, and everyone didwas one. His gifts were immense, as were his appetites. Enfant terrible and visionary, he was both. Mick and the Stones wanted to hang with him . Of course it couldn't last. Robert Brownjohn was simply too big for this world. He died in 1970 at the age of 45, a victim of his own excesses. Today, he is best remembered for his sexy James Bond credit sequences. But Brownjohn's legacy is far more significant, and his story has all the drama and pathos of a Hollywood blockbuster. Now, for the first time, this extraordinary life and career is remembered in print, with all its richness and complexity. Robert Sex and Typography tracks the story of this legend from his early years as the prized student of Laszlo Moholy-Nagy to his days as a visionary star in the New York design world of the sixties and his later years as an icon in the film and advertising world of swinging London. Robert Brownjohn illustrates the dynamic work Brownjohn produced on his own and as a cofounder of the firms Brownjohn, Chermayeff, and Geismar in New York, and Cammell, Hudson, and Brownjohn in London, including campaigns for such giants as Pirelli, IBM, and Midland Bank. Robert Brownjohn is both an inspirational monograph of creative genius and a window into the life of a Falstaffian figure who just happened to be one of the formative designers of the twentieth century.

Genres: Design, Art, Nonfiction

240 pages, Hardcover

First published September 22, 2005

Reviews

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Robert Brownjohn was an art director in New York and London at the height of the ad agency boom, like a more experimental and reckless version of Mad Men's Don Draper. Sadly, Brownjohn's longstanding addiction to alcohol and hard drugs ended his life during his prime. Sex and Typography is a book about his truncated life and amazing work.

The first part provides an oral history of Brownjohn told through his friends and coworkers, while the second part reviews some of his body of work with short essays written by Emily King describing major pieces. His high-intensity and chaotic lifestyle comes across in his work, the most well-known of which are the movie title sequences for the James Bond films From Russia With Love and Goldfinger.

Overall, this was a worthwhile read, and provided a lot of great color and perspective the founding of some of the design industry's titans—like Pentagram and Chermayeff & Geismar—at a moment when the booming commercial art field seemed to split into design-oriented and advertising-oriented factions.

[Tim Lapetino · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have always admired Robert Brownjohn's amazing and innovative work on the film titles for "Goldfinger," and had this book on my wish list for quite some time. Finally getting a chance to read it, I feel it is solid but something of a mixed bag.

I really appreciated the approach that Emily King took in writing this, cobbling together what amounts to a written biography/oral history of the man and his career using the words of the people who knew him well. It adds up to an intriguing portrait of a man who struggled with insecurity and substance abuse, though we rarely hear from the designer himself.

My only knock on the book is that it didn't include more of his work. The work section of the book is well-considered and dives deep into some of the projects, but it felt surprisingly short for a man who had such an impressive career. I assume there was more work to show, and not certain if there were rights issues or clearances involved that presented an exhaustive body of work.

But in all, it's a worthy chronicle of his work, and I appreciate understanding how he fit into the 60s design scene in the US and UK, especially his partnership with Brownjohn Chermayeff & Geismar, the latter two going on to amazing heights in identity design.

This book is for those interested in design of the era and design history, which never hurts.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A thorough visual and sad oral history of a design genius who died too young. Brownjohn was probably the 20th century master of the "big idea" approach to communication design, which he elevated with wit and poetry that is as rare today as it was then.

[Ashod · Rating 5 out of 5]

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