Computer Arts Magazine - Issue 90 / 2003
Turning 30

It is 1973. People queue round the block to see The Exorcist, Suzi Quatro storms the charts with 'Can The Can' and Roger Moore steps out for the first time as 007 in 'Live and Let Die'. Bobby Moore puts an England shirt on for the last time whilst Jackie Stewart wins his first Formula One. The Sydney Opera House opens as does The Sears Tower in Chicago, tallest building in the world for a while. The three-day week, the Austin Allegro, the end of the Vietnam War, the start of the AOI. That's right; thirty years have passed since the very beginnings of the Association of Illustrators. Thirty years ago, the digital age was a pipe dream; Apple was just the name of a record company owned by The Beatles and micro soft was a term used to describe toilet paper, some things don't change.

Set up, in '73, to, and in their words: 'promote illustration, advance and protect illustrators rights and encourage professional standards' the Association of Illustrators marched in to fight the good fight on behalf of the illustration industry, albeit then something of a cottage industry. Illustration, as a career, by the early 70s had fully emerged from an area of graphic and advertising design known as commercial art, through exposure to the public throughout the 60s. Martin Sharpe's work for Oz magazine, Michael English's psychedelic posters and Alan Aldridge's illustrations for The Beatles had visually defined an era.

It was a fact-finding mission to New York that cemented the idea that an association would be the best way to represent illustrators' interests in the UK. Illustrator, Brian Grimwood (www.briangrimwood.com), the man who went on to set up, illustration agency CIA (www.centralillustration.com) recalls a trip with fellow artist, Allan Manham, the man who went onto set up another agency, Artworks (www.theartworksinc.com). 'In the States illustrators were gods,' exclaims Grimwood, 'and this was the start of the '70s and New York was jumping'. Grimwood and Manham arrived at the impressive brownstone headquarters of The Society of Illustrators on East 63rd Street; 'it was so cool, up on the top floor they were holding life-drawing classes, they had a white model and a black one just walking about to this classical music, we wanted whatever we set up in London to have the same kudos as the Society of Illustrators' states Grimwood. No small order, The SOI had been around since 1901, originally based around just nine prominent illustrators including Howard Pyle and Maxfield Parrish with a remit that must have impressed the two Brits; "the object of the Society shall be to promote generally the art of illustration and to hold exhibitions from time to time." To organise this, the nine US illustrators met once a month over dinner and invited some special guests. The guests were indeed pretty special; Mark Twain was one of them.

Back in London, armed with ideas and enthusiasm, Manham and Grimwood got together a group of interested illustrators, many of whom would later go onto setting up and running their own agencies too. The first meeting of The Association of Illustrators was held on the Exhibition Road site of The Royal College of Art in Kensington. A committee was formed; 'I was the new boy really', explains Grimwood, 'I'd only been illustrating since '69 but had had some success, the others had all been going longer than me, but I got voted on, I think they liked my style'. The dinners experienced by those impressive illustrators across the Atlantic were to be replicated this side; 'we would have meetings at Nan Winton's house and she was a fantastic cook!' Nan Winton, earlier in her career, had become the first woman to read the National News on BBC television in June 1960, and here she was entertaining the AOI. 'We ate like lords, slap-up meals, all very civilised' recalls Grimwood. The serious side to the business was being discussed too though, and with Virgil Pomfret, another who went onto run his own agency, as the first Chair of the AOI; a code of ethics was written and agreed upon.

Early AOI members included George Hardie, now Professor of Illustration at the University of Brighton, best known in the '70's for his album sleeve work for Led Zep and Pink Floyd. He recalls his first impression; 'it was very timely, illustrators needed guidance and protection, it was still a very new area, and the AOI carved out rights for illustrators; much needed at that time'. Hardie, an active illustrator as well as educator, proudly remembers gaining acceptance; 'my work featured in the very first Images Annual, and I got a piece in every year for the first thirteen, only one other illustrator managed that!' Images, the AOI book of the year's best of British illustration was launched in the second year of the AOI and has been published every year since. Work is selected for Images by a distinguished panel of peers from across the illustration, design and advertising world. Grimwood and Hardie both appear in that very first annual and in the most recent; Images 27, demonstrating their unique staying power in an area of design constantly changing and dictated by fashion. Only a small handful of others can make the same claim.

So what of the AOI now? It's fortunes have blown hot and cold over the years; from an impressive office and gallery space off Tottenham Court Road in the early '80s given back due to escalating rents, to near bankruptcy in the '90s; if the rumours are to be believed. It seemed for a while that the AOI lost it way a little, although it is worth remembering that illustration itself lost direction too. Whilst graphic designers embraced the digital revolution, illustrators kept their heads down and hoped it would all just go away. 'Typography Now', a ground-breaking book showcasing a collection of the most contemporary and cutting edge digital typography was published in '91 but it was another year before a single solo digital illustration appeared in the Images 17 annual. The following year another solo digital illustration, it was taking far too long for illustrators to embrace new technology. The AOI braved those dark days and today is based just a stone's throw from Hoxton and the City. The AOI borrows space from the AOP: the Association of Photographers. Oddly echoing the relationship that illustration has always had with photography, the AOI exists in a space left vacant by the AOP. An impressive 1,600 sq ft of cool minimalist gallery space over two floors and a suite of open-plan offices and facilities make up the AOP accommodation. The AOI office, however, tucked away in a corner, although cramped feels cool too. Cool in a stripped floorboard, sandblasted brick, and blueberry iMac, IKEA shelving kind of way. Those shelves, though, are crammed with 30 years of archives; Images annuals, boxes stuffed with copies of various AOI magazines; 'Illustrators' and 'The Journal' and framed originals on route back to exhibitors from this year's Images exhibition.

Despite the tight squeeze, behind these scenes, a group of dedicated individuals contribute to the AOI's impressive portfolio of offerings for its' members. A hotline is manned for legal and pricing advice, free portfolio consultations are set up, a bi-monthly journal is written, designed, printed and distributed and the website (www.theaoi.com) performs an excellent job in keeping members informed with up-to-date info, in touch with each other through the discussion forums and acts as an on-line archive for articles and features.

Now, 30 years on from that first AOI meeting, the future is looking bright. Eleven years after that annual with just the one digital image and the current edition sports a total of 132 images that utilise the digital, proof enough that a new way of working has finally fully been adopted. With events planned throughout the year to celebrate the 30th anniversary, the AOI's fans are numerous; John Hegarty, the Chairman of influential advertising agency BBH, describes the association's past simply as '30 years of visual inspiration' whilst Brian Grimwood, in right from the start, admits that 'because of the AOI illustrators are now considered a professional body, we are listened to and our rights have been established'.

Turning 30 is a stressful time for anyone but the AOI seems to be pulling it off with style. A lot more style than 1973 ever had, that's for sure.

Brian Grimwood

Listening to Brian Grimwood speak it is impossible not to get catch his infectious enthusiasm for British illustration. Grimwood knows everyone, and everyone knows Grimwood. From the early days of the AOI and the front cover of the first ever Images annual to national advertising campaigns for Eurostar and Perrier and cover illustrations for The New Yorker; Grimwood's work has appeared everywhere. Print magazine, the highly regarded US design publication, credits Grimwood 'as changing the look of British illustration' and it has a pretty valid point. When the AOI set up its first on-line discussion forum it was Grimwood who was chosen for the first Q&A session, every illustrator wants to know his secret.

Having spanned three decades of illustration image-making, the last two at the helm of his own agency; Central Illustration Agency or CIA, as it is known, Grimwood has seen many changes. 'I failed my 11+' admits Grimwood, 'so went off to Bromley Tech at the age of 13, to an art course run by Peter Frampton's dad. David Bowie was in the year above me! At 16 I left and got a job at Carlton Artists assisting these fantastic guys that were airbrushing thousands of illustrations of shoes, I just worked up from there'. Grimwood makes it sound so straight forward, with his level of enthusiasm, it probably was.

Stuart Briars

'The first illustration of mine to appear in an AOI Images annual, number 10, was a job for Computer World magazine, funny because the piece was painted in gouache!' admits Stuart Briars. Eighteen annuals later and its hard to find an edition without his work in; Briars has been quietly working away, gradually making the transition from the traditional to the digital. 'I was never very good with colour,' Briars claims, hard to believe with a body of work consistently proving him to be amongst the best in the business. 'I first used the Mac to experiment with colour, scanning in hand drawn visuals and adding colour in Photoshop 3 before going back and painting it in with gouache, it was all trial and error'.

A long-standing collaboration with the AOI started by accident, when dragged along to an AGM by a fellow illustrator; 'I ended up as a Council Member and then later was voted on as Chair,' Briars recalls without a hint of modesty, 'I then got absorbed with all the techy stuff, helped re-create the AOI database in Filemaker Pro, graduating to Go Live to re-design an early AOI site'. Now fully installed as Webmaster for the AOI, Briars admits to tinkering behind the scenes, 'the temptation is always there to fiddle, computer hours are unlike real hours, and they just fly by'. I suspect they are unlike gouache hours too.

© Lawrence Zeegen