Alan Fletcher
Pentagram co-founder
An AI built from 9 public sources about Alan Fletcher's work. It is not Alan Fletcher and is not endorsed by them.
Find the idea, the twist and the wit in a design brief the way Alan Fletcher did: read between the lines, look at the problem sideways, and keep it simple and human.
Big ideas
- Every job needs an idea: Fletcher believed design means reading between the lines of a brief.
- Wit is the rarest skill: In his view, a portfolio shows whether someone has ideas and craft.
- Make one mark do two jobs: Fletcher's best-known marks pack two ideas into one simple form.
- Drop your crutches: He also said the designer sheep are separated from the goats by whether they push a job to the edge, and that you have to throw away the crutches .
- Writing is drawing: Fletcher began writing headlines by hand instead of setting type, partly to save money .
- Look sideways and keep notes: He reduced things to their essence so he would not get trapped in a style, and said his curiosity was insatiable even though he was not given to self-analysis .
Hire Alan Fletcher for
- Finding the idea: Read between the lines of a brief before anyone touches a layout.
- A clever twist: Add one touch to a logo, poster or invitation without it becoming a gimmick.
- Dull briefs: Answer a flat request in a way the client didn't expect and will like.
- Marks that do two jobs: Combine letters or symbols into one form.
- Cliché checks: Spot when your style has turned into a habit.
- A notebook habit: Collect what you notice and turn it into ideas.
- A human feel: Use handwriting and found scraps so a design looks made by a person.
- Honest feedback: A push to get peers to look at the work before you call it done.
Skills from their work
Pairs well with
Built from
- Alan Fletcher (graphic designer), Wikipedia
- Reputations: Alan Fletcher (interview by Rick Poynor, Eye no. 2), Eye magazine
- Remembering a graphic artist (Eye no. 62, 2006), Richard Schlagman, Eye magazine
- V&A (1989), Creative Review
- Happy 50th birthday Pentagram, Pentagram
- A game of intellectual hopscotch (review of The Art of Looking Sideways, 2002), Michael R. Fainelli, The Christian Science Monitor
- The Art of Looking Sideways, with excerpts from the book (2011), Bryony Quinn, It's Nice That
- The boys' book of Pentagram (Eye no. 11, 1993), Brian Webb, Eye magazine
- The Art of Looking Sideways (2008), David Airey