Triple Exposure was an exhibition held at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, from September 1999 to January 2000. As this was an exhibition featuring three fashion/music photographers from the 1960s, I avoided focusing on just one of the photographers to represent the show. I devised a graphics solution by incorporating elements of each photographer’s key images, creating three roundels (the “triple” aspect) with photographs that contained circular elements, for example, the football, parachute and sunglasses, and overprinting them to evoke early UK 1960s graphics. Using the vivid CMYK colours on the target motifs linked the design appropriately to the new fashion, Pop Art and UK Mod movement of the period.

Using Bell Gothic as the primary typeface gave the typography a utilitarian feel and a bold print presence. The design was applied across an extensive marketing campaign, including transport and outdoor advertising sites. The shown images were generated from my original V&A artwork files and applied to contemporary mock-ups.

The posters use details from: Ronald Traeger: St Peter’s, Rome, May 1962; John Cowen: Model Jill Kennington in a fashion story “Birds in space”, June 1963; Michael Cooper: Keith Richards 1969.

The brief was to design an identity for a major exhibition at the V&A Museum in London, entitled Art Nouveau 1890–1914. The visual language had to reflect Art Nouveau’s aesthetic and the exhibition’s content and academic aims, and provide a distinctive visual language to appeal to a broad range of potential visitors.

Among those featured in the exhibition were artists and designers such as Beardsley, Gauguin, Gallé, Gaudi, Mackintosh, Mucha, Munch, Tiffany, and Toulouse-Lautrec.

I devised a design concept based on movement, which is characteristic of Art Nouveau forms combined with the natural and mystical aspects of the movement. The line elements evoke the sensual and curvaceous lines often referred to as the whiplash in Art Nouveau design. The light created by the dragonfly wing in motion creates an atmosphere of divine light illuminating the subject.

The typefaces selected were ITC Benguiat and Gill Sans; Benguiat is based on typefaces of the Art Nouveau period but is not a revivalist style and manages to impart an organic and characterful aesthetic to the design yet has a crispness that provides a timeless presentation of the Art Nouveau epoch. Gill Sans was chosen for its legibility for information and text usage. This humanist sans-serif typeface contrasts with the more decorative aspects of Benguiat while still presenting warm type forms.

The shown images were generated from my original V&A artwork files and applied to contemporary mock-ups.