Liam, nice to see you. How are you?
Likewise! Very well, thanks. Looking forward to catching up with you. How’s work?
The industry feels slow at the moment, but America — where I do a lot of work — seems to have come back online after having been quiet for about three years. You know me — I’m eternally optimistic, Liam.
That’s interesting — have your American clients been with you a long time?
Some yes, some no. When I first started working decades ago, it was a much smaller community. Nowadays, it’s a truly global market, but back in the ’80s and ’90s, it was just London, really. And then occasionally, we would work for people up in Scotland or overseas.
Before we start, thank you for your help with our Think Tank illustrations. They are fantastic, and it’s been great working with you again on something so fun and energising.
My pleasure. It’s a really good project, Liam. The whole concept is great — I’ve been reading them, and I like that it’s a recurring series because they’re bite-sized pieces. When people write about strategy, it’s often quite overwhelming. Especially if it’s a topic that you have little insight into to begin with. Some of the ideas are quite abstract; let’s face it. So good job!
Thank you; I appreciate that. Can we start by introducing yourself and telling me about your career?
No problem. I’m Peter Grundy — an illustrator and visual communicator. My creative journey is a long one. I went to art college in the 70s, long before any form of digital technology was invented. In those days, our colleges were a very different entity from what they are today. I went to two colleges. My first was Bath, and then I went on to the Royal College of Art in London. Both colleges had very, very different teaching styles.
At Bath, I was taught traditional graphic design. Swiss typography, how to design trademarks, bookbinding, printing and drawing. These were the fundamental tools which were used in those days to teach you to be a designer. You’d only design specific things like posters, leaflets, etc in the final year of the 3 year course. And then I moved on to the Royal College, which was very different. The course was run by a design giant called Luke Klein, who was really an advertising person at heart. His way of teaching was all about ideas — having ideas to solve problems for clients in a visual way. Most of the people who went to the Royal College went into advertising because it was the most glamorous part of the profession in those days, and definitely the best paid.
And honestly, the studio system that evolved in the 80s wasn’t really kicking in yet. The studios were almost craft-oriented practices where designers would do graphic corporate identities for companies, maybe an occasional piece of packaging design, whatever. Anyway, while I was at the Royal College, I became interested in an area of design that no one else was, which was information design. It’s such a long time ago — nearly 50 years ago — that I can’t honestly tell you why I was drawn to this particular area. It might have just been that it was done so badly and boringly. I thought, ‘Well, this would be something interesting to explore.’ When asked today why I went down this path, I usually say, ‘Well, I was more interested in a form of design that was about explaining things rather than selling things, although that sounds awfully liberal for this day and age. When I left the Royal College, I started working with Tilly Northedge, who was also at the College. We had this naive idea of starting a design studio that did information design in a creative way like the advertising people, and over the next 25 years or so, we established a name for ourselves.
What challenges did you run into early on, if any?
We faced a problem that we didn’t foresee. Unfortunately, there was very little money in information design, unlike advertising, where clients had a lot of budget to spend. So, we couldn’t really employ the Royal College teaching in our practice, which was to create the idea and then bring in the best typographer, photographer and illustrator to make it happen. We just didn’t have a budget to do that. So, we thought, ‘Well, how will we do this stuff?’ We had the ideas, but we had to figure out how to turn them into something we could give to a client. We had both been taught how to draw in a graphic way, so we put
those skills to use and developed a simple imagery to translate our ideas. That’s really how our style and methodology were born, through having to do it all ourselves.
Did you work for anyone after the Royal College or jump straight into business ownership?
Great question and an interesting point. At the end of my final year, I got headhunted at my degree show by David Stewart, who later went on to set up The Partners. In those days, he ran John McConnell’s studio at Pentagram. John McConnell was big in typography and corporate identities, which we now call branding. David Stewart basically dragged me out of the College and said, ‘You’ve got to come and interview with John McConnell’. So I went over to see them and was offered a job. I always remember him showing me what I’d be doing — typesetting letterheads, paste-ups, etc. ‘Someone will devise an idea, and you will apply that logo on all these different items’. I wanted to be the one coming up with the idea. I deeply considered that opportunity, but I’d already committed to starting something with Tilly and knew we could make it work.
How did you get started?
We just threw ourselves in. We opened a bank account and bought all the equipment you needed to be a designer in those days, which probably amounted to about 20 quid. We rented a couple of desks in a warehouse in Chiswick, and I went back to Pentagram and said, ‘Well, um, thank you. But now I’m gonna start this business up. But, if you’ve got any freelance work, then we would certainly be interested.‘
I can’t remember how that was received, but I can imagine.
Did you ever have a mentor of any kind?
Yes, I did. That continues with the Pentagram story, really. About a year after Tilly and I started, we got a call from Alan Fletcher. He rang me up and said, ‘I understand you wanted to do freelance work for us. We’ve got just the job for you. Come in, and I’ll talk to you about it. He had this beautiful job which was designing a set of playing cards, but in a very particular way, and they all had to be drawn, and he said, ‘Well, what do you think of that?’. I said, ‘It’s a lovely job, but I can’t do it. We’re just too busy.’
Uh oh.
He said, ‘Well, you don’t want a bloody job at Pentagram, you don’t want any freelance work from Pentagram. What do you want?’, so I went away, and I thought I’d really burnt my boats with Pentagram… then fast forward to the year 2000, which is like 20 years from when we started, and I got another phone call for Alan Fletcher, and he said, ‘I don’t want you to say, no, I just want you to come over to Shell with me. It’s the big building opposite Waterloo Station — you can’t miss it.’
So I went over there, and we went into a meeting that went on for about an hour. I had no idea what was going on at this meeting at all. It turns out to be the start of Shell Scenarios. Every three years, Shell writes a series of scenarios that are tools to help people in the energy business understand possible futures. These are not predictions — they’re possible futures. Alan had been tasked with creating a brand identity for the Shell Scenarios department, and he wanted me to get involved in the information design and turn it into a visual language. So, it was very abstract, energy-oriented ideas that were being turned into elegant, simple graphic ideas. Consequently, after that meeting, I worked with Shell for another 10 to 15 years. Alan stepped away after about a year and graciously said that he didn’t need to be involved any longer and to carry on by myself.
What did you take from that?
That visual language I developed during that decade led me to pause being a designer and cease running a design studio. It helped me become an individualist who could explain things using a very personal visual approach. As you’ll know from your own experience, a lot of your energy goes into running a design studio. Especially if you’re employing people. Managing personalities, ensuring others are happy, and doing things properly takes a lot out of you. It just started to bore me, I think.
Working alone again would free me up to concentrate on what I’m really good at — the creative imagery I produce. What I didn’t anticipate was how hard that would be at times, as I didn’t have to manage anyone but myself.
I firmly believe designers, illustrators, and all creative people must be in an environment that inspires them, especially when they’re young. I can get away with it at my age, but I think if you’re young, you need to be with other creative people, you know?
Do you have a communal studio? Do you work from home?
We mainly work from home. We have a space in Edinburgh that we use, but remote working suits us as people. Our clients are located nationwide (and beyond), so it works well. But we’re looking at spaces again and weighing up our options… It’s good to have a physical space to work together. I know you also work from home — do you miss sharing a workspace?
I’ve done both, but when I worked with Tilly, we always had a studio that used to cost us a fortune, quite frankly. It used to eat up much of our profit, but we found it helped from a creative and mental health point of view. It was just better. And back then, the notion of working at home just didn’t exist like it does now. When Tilly retired, I tried a few different setups. I rented spaces, desk space and rooms. Then, I started working at home. Is it the best way? I’m not sure. Would it work for everyone? Absolutely not. There are pros and cons.
Agreed. It’s a massive barrier for younger creatives. You can’t learn by osmosis if you’re alone most of the day. Returning to your journey for a second, what did life look like for you before art school?
It’s a good question. I’ve given a lot of thought to this over the last decade or so. It was a very, very academic environment when I went to school. I wasn’t a particularly academic person. I found that I was better at communicating visually than I was with the written word. I was quiet — I didn’t say much, and I always enjoyed drawing and making pictures. We had a very good art department, which was run by the ‘Art Master’. But he was a bit more than that. He understood what was coming down the pipe regarding the use of design and how commercial art could evolve. When it was brushed aside by the academics, he could see there was a path for me, and he was instrumental in persuading me to go to art college.
I always remember my parents went along to a school meeting and they said, ‘Well, we’re not sure about Peter going to the local art college here in Taunton. Art is very competitive, isn’t it?’, and he replied, ‘Well, what isn’t that’s interesting?’ That always stayed with me because it’s true. Anything interesting will be competitive.
What principles underpin your process?
I’m more interested in design that educates rather than trying to sell something. Knowledge and understanding are important in making difficult topics accessible. I like to feel that what I’m doing is of some help and value to people. I’m at my best when I’m doing that. Whether it’s visually explaining subjects that are quite abstract or even visualising something fairly straightforward.
I did a book called The Body Book some years ago, which was designed for children. I vividly remember weighing up how to make it interesting without being patronising. My answer was to tackle it with a sense of humour. So, usefulness is important, but so is being entertaining. A huge part of design is actually entertainment.
You can communicate something really clearly, but it’s not visually interesting, so why would anybody spend their time looking at it?
Precisely. I think humour has always played a very big part in my work.
What brings you joy?
Doing the work, to be honest with you. I don’t suppose I’d still be working into my fifth decade if I didn’t enjoy doing it. A lot of my contemporaries have got tired and given up. There’s a lot of disillusionment in the world at the moment — well, there’s disillusionment in design, too. People’s character and interests change over the years, you know? But I’ve always really enjoyed producing images that I feel are successful and elegant. My books bring me joy, too. I’ve just finished producing my latest book, Grundy 5, which is about iconography. So, it’s a book of small iconographic images, and it has been a pleasure to pull it all together.
How do you stay inspired?
It’s closely linked to what brings me joy, but I suppose I mostly stay inspired through sheer determination to keep going. I firmly believe that there is a case for doing things the way I do them. I don’t rely on computer technology. I feel it’s my mission to carry on doing things my way, for the sake and integrity of the creative profession. Someone’s got to carry on doing things properly!
Going back to what makes you tick — how much of that do you credit to stepping away from agency ownership? If you had carried on managing people and balancing budgets, would you have the same enjoyment?
Well, that’s a very good point. I’ll answer quite honestly. I think deep down inside, I have always been a single-image person. It suits my personality better. I think I would find it very difficult to find the time to create work I’m truly happy with if I were running an agency again. In my last 10 years of agency ownership, we produced work for the United Nations and the World Bank.
These projects were like telephone directories of information. The percentage of creative effort in those types of projects is probably about 5-10%, and the rest is production or manufacturing. I believe what finally drove Tilly out of the business completely was the impossibility of some of the clients that we were working with. By stopping managing and becoming ‘just an illustrator’, as someone once described me, I believe I gave myself another 25 to 30 years in the business, quite honestly.
And what’s the best advice you’ve ever received?
The best advice that I’ve ever been given was by my tutor at the Royal College of Art. He was a scary man. He taught me in the late 70’s in a way that would probably be barely legal today. He said exactly what he felt. But he used to come up with these great pearls of wisdom, and one of them was ‘there’s only one thing worse than being bad. And that’s being mediocre.’ I’ve always remembered that. I’ll always try to make something different — if it’s bad, it’s okay. But there’s no way I will try to do something that’s just safe.
Some people didn’t respond to that way of teaching. They just ran screaming from the course, which was only 12 people. At the end of College, we had about eight people in our final show. If he felt something wasn’t good, he would say, ‘That’s shit. What you’ve done there is shit. I want to see something tomorrow, and it needs to be better. And believe me, that’s more time than you will get in the real world.’
We had a similar tutor, and it was so important. It’s not nice at the time, but it’s often when you need to hear. What advice would you give people entering the industry?
Oh, that’s never changed. Just be yourself and do something different. Do something that other people can’t do. Don’t be mediocre. Take risks. Don’t be scared to have a go. Try to persuade clients that your way is the best.
How would you describe the current creative landscape?
For me, just too many people doing it. A lot of the work I see could be made with artificial intelligence. Generative AI is a great tool for those without a creative vision. I think it might be useful in replacing some of the mediocracy. But to rely on it to produce new ideas? I’m not convinced. That’s what you need real intelligence for. It will be very good at repackaging stuff that already exists.
Any final thoughts for emerging talent in particular?
It’s not a vocation. It’s a way of life. It needs commitment. Total commitment.
Thanks for taking the time out of your schedule to speak with me — I really enjoyed it!
It’s been a real pleasure. Looking forward to working with you again next week!
