Ken Garland

Ken Garland (19 February 1929 – 20 May 2021) was a British graphic designer, photographer, writer and educator. Garland is known for his writing on design and the prolific work of his studio Ken Garland & Associates.

Early life and education Garland was born in Southampton, and he grew up in Barnstaple, north Devon. He later studied design at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts, graduating in 1954. In 1956, he became art editor of Design magazine, the trade journal of the Society of Industrial Arts, until 1962. In 1962, he left Design to form his own studio, Ken Garland & Associates.

Garland taught throughout his career at the Central School of Art and Design (1986–91), University of Reading (1971-99), Royal College of Art (1977–87) and University of Brighton, among other institutions.

Garland was a prolific writer. His work has been published in Baseline, Blueprint, Creative Review and Eye magazine. He is the author of five books on design, including Graphics Handbook (1966), Illustrated Graphics Glossary (1980), Mr Beck's Underground map (1994) and A word in your eye (1996).

In 2008, Garland founded Pudkin Books with his wife, artist Wanda Garland (Wistrich). Pudkin is known for a series of picture books each on the theme of "A Close Look at..." a particular subject, from pebbles and street graphics to Mexican windows. Garland recalled first scribbling it down during a meeting of the Society of Industrial Arts: "I found I wasn't so much reading it as declaiming it ... it had become ... that totally unfashionable device, a Manifesto."

In 1999, the manifesto was re-signed by 23 prominent graphic designers and critics, and republished as the First Things First 2000 manifesto. It appeared in Adbusters magazine. Both manifestos have been widely written about and republished. in Eye no. 83, vol. 21, which, among other things, refuted the division between designers and clients, of "us and them", in favour of designer / client partnerships.