Alan Fletcher

Alan Gerard Fletcher (27 September 1931 – 21 September 2006) was a British graphic designer and one of the founders of the design studio Pentagram. In his obituary, he was described by The Daily Telegraph as "the most highly regarded graphic designer of his generation, and probably one of the most prolific". Fletcher was noted for use of bold colors and a humorous graphic approach to advertising and branding.

Born in Nairobi, Kenya, Fletcher moved to England at age five, and studied at four art schools: Hammersmith School of Art, Central School of Art, Royal College of Art (1953–1956) and lastly Yale School of Art and Architecture at Yale University in 1956.

Early life Fletcher was born in Nairobi, where his father was a civil servant, on 27 September 1931. When his father was terminally ill, he returned to England at the age of five with the rest of his family. After his father's death, he lived with his grandparents in Shepherd's Bush in West London, under Alvin Eisenman, Norman Ives, Herbert Matter, Bradbury Thompson, Josef Albers and Paul Rand. During his time in the United States, Fletcher visited Robert Brownjohn, Ivan Chermayeff and Tom Geismar in New York, became friends with Bob Gill, and was commissioned by Leo Lionni to design a cover for Fortune magazine in 1958. After a visit to Venezuela, he returned to London in 1959, Their early work was the 1963 book Graphic Design: A Visual Comparison published in John Lewis's Studio Paperbacks series.

Gill left the partnership in 1965 and was replaced by Theo Crosby, so the firm became Crosby/Fletcher/Forbes. Two new partners joined, and the partnership evolved into Pentagram in 1972, with Forbes, Crosby, Kenneth Grange and Mervyn Kurlansky,

Fletcher left Pentagram in 1992, which he joined in 1993. even on holiday, drawing on a notepad with a pencil.

A book of his designs, Beware Wet Paint, was published by Jeremy Myerson in 1994. Fletcher also wrote several books about graphic design and visual thinking, most notably The Art of Looking Sideways (2001), which had taken him 18 years to finish.

An exhibition of his life's work was displayed at the Design Museum in London between 11 November 2006 until 18 February 2007, alongside the posthumous publication of a book, Picturing and Poeting. The exhibition went on tour in 2008. It was installed at the Ginza Graphic Gallery in Tokyo between 9 and 31 May 2008, and was installed at the Pitzhanger Manor Gallery in Ealing, West London, between 14 November 2008 and 3 January 2009.

Fletcher won the 1993 Prince Philip Designers Prize given by the Design Council, at his daughter's home in East Sussex, England. Multiple obituaries reported that he wore a t-shirt with a graphic that read "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm on my way" at the time of his death.