Designing Modern Ireland: the Role of Graphic Design in the Construction of Modern Ireland at Home and Abroad (1949-1979).’
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‘Designing Modern Ireland: The Role of Graphic Design in the Construction of Modern Ireland at Home and Abroad (1949-1979).’ Mary Ann Bolger A thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Royal College of Art for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Royal College of Art October, 2017 1 This text represents the submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the Royal College of Art. This copy has been supplied for the purpose of research for private study, on the understanding that it is copyright material, and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. 2 Abstract Designing Modern Ireland: The negotiation of tradition and modernity in Irish graphic design (1949-1979) As the modernising Irish state sought to project a positive image of post-war Ireland, a paradox emerged: how could the symbolism of national distinctiveness (heretofore synonymous with the past) be reconciled with modernity? This thesis outlines the role which graphic design played in attempts to resolve tensions between the national and the modern. The thesis examines how design was mobilised as a symbol and agent of modernisation in Ireland in the run-up to and immediate aftermath of the 1958 ‘Programme for Economic Expansion’, widely considered to be the manifestation of an explicit state-led programme of modernisation. It examines the gradual replacement of the outward symbols of Republican Nationalism with a pervasive symbolism of modern efficiency, suggesting that this was a visual manifestation of the drive towards ‘organisation’ and rational management that gripped the civil service. It examines the paradoxical situation whereby designers in Ireland sought to present themselves and the nation as modern and professional, while the Irish Trade Board (charged with both design and export promotion) looked to professional designers abroad to present Ireland and her exports as traditional. Central to this discussion is the critique by designers (particularly those associated with Ireland’s first professional body, the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design) of so-called ‘Stage Irish’ versions of national image-making. An examination of their work and writings provides evidence for a series of alternative visual strategies for being Irish and modern —often quoting Celtic and early-Christian artefacts in otherwise modernist settings— which I have termed ‘Celtic modernism.’ From the early 1950s onwards, debates over ‘tradition’ and ‘modernisation’ were given visible form in the contentious issue of which letterform to use for the Irish 3 language: ‘roman’ or ‘Gaelic’. This culminated in 1965 in the decommissioning of the Irish alphabet – at which point typography, that most everyday and habitually overlooked of visual material, became briefly visible and highly charged. The final section of the thesis focuses on the relationship between language, typography and identity. It argues that the debates about language reform in the mid twentieth- century led to a reconsideration of the variety of ways of ‘being Irish’ typographically and that the ‘Celtic’ associations of the uncial letter in particular offered potential for the negotiation of tradition and modernity. The thesis concludes that design in Ireland was presented as a means and a metaphor of modernisation. It attempts through an examination of a range of design examples, to follow Roland Barthes’s injunction to ‘track down in the decorative display of what- goes-without-saying’ the ideological constructions hidden in plain sight. Mary Ann Bolger October 2017 4 Table of Contents Abstract 3 Table of Contents 5 Author’s declaration 7 Acknowledgments 8 Introduction 10 Overview of structure, sources and methods 13 1. Why write a history of Irish design? 21 2. When (and what) was modernism in Ireland? 28 3. Is ‘Irish modernist design’ an oxymoron? 33 Defining the ‘Celtic’ 39 Chapter One 47 Visualising Ireland: how design was mobilised as a symbol and agent of modernisation in Ireland 1951-1960. 47 Introduction 47 Visualising a nation in crisis: The Vanishing Irish 50 The First Programme for Economic Expansion: a roadmap for modernisation 54 Protectionism: the easy-going manufacturer’s diabolical presentation 56 Visualising Modern Ireland 62 Design Promotion: Visualising Organisation 73 International exemplars: making visible what Irish design was lacking. 76 Design Research Unit (of Ireland) and the International Design Exhibition 78 Irish design consultancies: DRUI and Signa. 85 The Irish Design Exhibition 90 The Irish Design Exhibition’s impact on design consultancy in Ireland 98 ‘Not so much a matter of art and national pride as a matter of sound business’: reactions to modernist design and designers. 104 Chapter Two 110 Selling Ireland: negotiating tradition and modernity in the proJection of modern Ireland 1951-1965 110 Introduction 110 Córas Tráchtála (CTT) 114 The Institute of Creative Advertising and Design (ICAD) 115 ‘Stage Irish’ Design 122 Selling Ireland: ‘collective’ branding 124 Tradition and modernity in export promotion 127 Part 1 CTT’s image in the United States 127 Part 2 Irish exports and publicity in the United Kingdom 136 Return of the Leprechaun 144 The ‘Scandinavian Report’ 146 ICAD’s attempts to set the design reform agenda 155 Chapter Three 173 We have always been modern: Celtic modernist affinities 1960-1973 173 5 Introduction 173 KDW graphics in Irish design historiography 175 Modern or vernacular modernism in Irish graphic design 180 ‘Celtic Cubism’ 187 Newgrange: ‘Older than Stonehenge’ 194 ‘The silent ambassadors of national taste’: stamp design and Celtic modernism 204 Rosc ’67: Designing Celtic Primitivism 222 From Celtic Modern to Celtic Consciousness: art criticism, postmodernism and the decline of Signa 243 Chapter Four 249 ‘Our Final Sign’ typographic negotiations of tradition and modernity in Ireland, 1951-1979. 249 Introduction 249 Physiognomies of print 251 A symbolic crisis: modernisation as a remedy for the decline of the Irish language 259 Modernisation and Romanisation 262 We have always been roman 266 ‘A Letter Like A Monument’: typographic commemoration 273 Conclusion 281 Further research 282 Bibliography 285 Primary Sources 285 Archives 285 Contemporary Newspapers, Magazines and Periodicals 286 Interviews 287 Government publications 288 Published sources 289 Unpublished Sources 322 Theses 322 Conference Papers 322 6 Author’s declaration During the period of registered study in which this thesis was prepared, the author has not been registered for any other academic award or qualification. The material included in this thesis has not been submitted wholly or in part for any academic award or qualification other than that for which it is now submitted. Small sections of the research for this thesis have been published in other formats while a work-in-progress: ‘Redesigning the Rising: Typographic Commemorations of 1916’ in Making 1916: The Visual and Material Culture of the Easter Rising, edited by Lisa Godson and Joanna Brück (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 2015); ‘Patrick Scott’s Work for Signa Design Consultants’ in Patrick Scott: Image Space Light, edited by Christina Kennedy (Dublin: Irish Museum of Modern Art, 2014); ‘Campaign’s Campaign: A History of the Journal of the Institute of Advertising and Design’ in Campaign: Journal of the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design No. 12 (May, 2016) and ‘Buttering Up the British: Irish Exports and the Tourist Gaze’ In|Print (Vol.1, No.1, January 2012). In addition, Ian McClaren’s recent essay on Peter Wildbur for Baseline No. 63 (2017) acknowledges my unpublished research as a key source. Signature Date 20th October, 2017. 7 Acknowledgments This thesis has been made possible by funding from two schemes in the Dublin Institute of Technology: the Institute-Wide Fee Support Competition and the DIT College of Arts and Tourism Seed Funding Scheme. I acknowledge the generous support of the Dublin School of Creative Arts. I am very grateful to my supervisors, Jeremy Aynsley and Jane Pavitt for their insight, enthusiasm and, especially, patience. I would also like to thank David Crowley for his helpful input during the early stages of the research. Several people have generously given feedback on drafts of parts of the thesis; thanks to Tim Stott, Juliet Ash, and Lisa Godson. The thesis has been particularly enriched by critical conversations with Aoife Monks, Sarah Foster and Séan Kissane, who also offered much appreciated moral support. I would like to offer deepest thanks to all those designers and copywriters who granted me interviews and access to their archives: Peter Wildbur, Bill Murphy, Damien Harrington and Seán O’Boyle, as well as those now deceased: Bill Bolger, Bernard Share, Patrick Scott, Jarlath Hayes, Norman Mongon and Jan de Fouw. Thanks also to family members who contributed vital information: Susan Waine (daughter of Jarlath Hayes and niece of Bill Bolger, Susan also worked for Hayes and Liam Miller), Ruth Hecht (daughter of Hermann Hecht), Michael Bolger (brother of Bill Bolger), Lynn Sanders (Peter Wildbur’s niece), Eric Pearce (Patrick Scott’s partner) and Perry Share (son of Bernard Share). Thanks also to the many archivists and librarians who have assisted me in my research. In particular, I would like to thank: Pascal Letellier at the Arts Council Archives; Elaine McDevitt of the Institute of Creative Advertising and Design; Carla Marinan and Seán Sills at the National Print Museum; Margaret Moran, formerly of An Bord