Design Research Unit

The British Rail double arrow designed by Gerry Barney of the DRU

The Design Research Unit (DRU) was one of the first generation of British design consultancies combining expertise in architecture, graphics and industrial design.

It was established in 1943 by the poet Herbert Read, architect Misha Black and graphic designer Milner Gray. ^[1] It became well known for its work in relation to the Festival of Britain in 1951 and its influential corporate identity project for British Rail in 1965. ^[2] In 2004, DRU merged with Scott Brownrigg architects. ^{[3] [4]}

History

British Rail class 40 locomotive, featuring the 1965 corporate branding by DRU

The group officially formed in 1943 by several individuals, including the architect Misha Black, graphic designer Milner Gray, the poet and art critic Herbert Read, and advertising executive Marcus Brumwell. ^{[1] [5] [6]} From the onset, its purpose was to bring art and industry together in a cohesive design for the benefit of all. ^{[1] [7]} An early set of notes proposed a "service equipped to advise on all problems of design", addressing the needs of "the State, Municipal Authorities, Industry or Commerce." They anticipated a post-war demand for technical expertise and a need for "the reconditioning and re-designing public utility services" recommending "contact... with the railway companies, motor coach lines and so on." ^[8]

Herbert Read became the group's first member of staff, ^[6] sharing offices in Kingsway with Mass-Observation, another initiative that Brumwell supported under the umbrella of the Advertising Services Guild. During 1944, Read was joined by the economist and writer Bernard Hollowood and, after an unsuccessful tour of factories across the Midlands, the group engaged the sculptor Naum Gabo to design a new car for the light vehicle manufacturer Jowett Cars. However, this contract was terminated by the company in 1945 after the design was claimed by Jowett to be 'radical but impractical'. ^{[9] [10]}

Black and Gray were initially committed to wartime roles within the Exhibitions Department for the Ministry of Information. Under their leadership, DRU made important postwar contributions to the Britain Can Make It exhibition (1946) and Festival of Britain (1951). At the invitation of the Council of Industrial Design (afterward Design Council), DRU designed the Quiz Machines that sought to gauge public taste at BCMI, as well as the highly didactic ‘What Industrial Design Means’ display (by Black, Bronek Katz, and R. Vaughan). This marked the beginning of a long association between the two bodies.^{[ citation needed ]} For the Festival of Britain, they were the architects for the Regatta Restaurant and designed a series of displays for the Dome of Discovery. ^{[11] [12]}

While not the primary focus area of the group, it was responsible for the production of several noteworthy buildings, such as the mammal house at London Zoo and a rooftop extension to the DRU’s own building in Aybrook Street. ^[1] Under Gray's direction, five 'architectural style groups' were created and used for the signage of numerous pubs across the UK. The signage promoted by the agency saw one of the earliest uses of pressure-formed plastic, which has since become commonplace on the British high-street. ^[1]

The group would be particularly impactful to British Railways (BR) during the 1960s, which was vigerously seeking to modernise and restructure at this time; in particular, BR management wished to divest the organisation of anachronistic, heraldic motifs and develop a corporate identity to rival that of London Transport. Gray headed a working party that was established by BR's design panel; it drew up a Corporate Identity Manual which established a coherent brand and design standard for the whole organisation, specifying Rail Blue and pearl grey as the standard colour scheme for all rolling stock; Rail Alphabet as the standard corporate typeface, designed by Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert; and introducing the now-iconic corporate Identity Symbol of the Double Arrow logo. ^[1] Designed by Gerald Barney (also of the DRU), this arrow device was formed of two interlocked arrows across two parallel lines, symbolising a double-track railway. It was likened to a bolt of lightning or barbed wire, and also acquired a nickname: "the arrow of indecision". ^{[13] [14]} A mirror image of the double arrow was used on the port side of BR-owned Sealink ferry funnels. The new BR corporate identity and double arrow were displayed at the Design Centre in London in early 1965, and the organisation's brand name was shortened to "British Rail". ^{[15] [16]}

City of Westminster street name signs by Misha Black

Key DRU commissions included the 1954 Electricity Board Showrooms, by Black, Gibson, and H. Diamond, the BOAC engineering hall at London Airport (Heathrow) by Black, Kenneth Bayes, and BOAC staff from 1951 to 1955, and a number of interiors for the P&O Orient Line's new liner Oriana by Black and Bayes in 1959. Other companies for whom DRU worked included Ilford, Courage, Watney Combe & Reid ^{[17] [9]} Dunlop, and London Transport. The 1968 City of Westminster street name signs by Misha Black (typography and implementation by Christopher Timings and Roger Bridgman) have become an integral part of London's streetscape. ^[1]

Since that time, DRU worked for many high-profile companies, in interior design, graphic design and architecture. Projects of note include:

• Architectural design for: London Underground's Jubilee line extension works, Docklands Light Railway (DLR), Copenhagen Metro, Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway, Nottingham's guided bus system.^{[ citation needed ]}
• Graphic design & wayfinding for: Network Rail, Lee Valley, Tarmac, ABC Television.^{[ citation needed ]}

Notable partners and associates

• Misha Black, 1943–77
• Marcus Brumwell, 1943–74
• Frederick Gibberd, 1945–46
• Milner Gray, joined 1943
• Jock Kinneir, 1949–56
• Herbert Read, 1943–68
• Richard Rogers, 1967–71
• Felix Samuely, 1945–46
• Sadie Speight, 1945–46

References

Citations

1. McGuirk, Justin (12 October 2010). "Design Research Unit: the firm that branded Britain". The Guardian . Archived from the original on 30 November 2022.
2. Creative Review December 201
3. "Official website". Archived from the original on 1 March 2011. Retrieved 19 February 2011.
4. "Innovation: Design Research Unit" (PDF). ukbusinessinchina.com. p. 160. Retrieved 29 January 2025.
5. Proceedings of DRS 2016 International Conference: Future-Focused Thinking (PDF). Design Research Society. 2016. OCLC   965198588.
6. Holland, James (May 1983). "OBITUARY: Marcus Brumwell". Journal of the Royal Society of Arts. 131 (5322): 352. ISSN   0035-9114. JSTOR   41373589.
7. "From bombs to brands". eyemagazine.com. 2010.
8. Milner Gray "Notes on the Formation and Operation of a Design Group" 20 October 1942 (unpublished) p. 1.
9. King, James (1990). The Last Modern: A Life of Herbert Read. London, UK: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. pp. 214–216.
10. Cotton, Michelle (1 January 2011). "Take courage: Behind the curtain". tate.org.uk.
11. Forgan, Sophie (1 June 1998). "Festivals of science and the two cultures: science, design and display in the Festival of Britain, 1951". The British Journal for the History of Science. 31 (2): 217–240. doi:10.1017/S0007087498003264. ISSN   1474-001X. S2CID   144688774.
12. Glancey, Jonathan. "The genius behind stick figure toilet signs". www.bbc.com. Retrieved 9 June 2019.
13. "The Arrow of Indecision". madebysix.wordpress.com. 5 January 2012. Archived from the original on 27 April 2017. Retrieved 26 April 2017.
14. Shannon, Paul. "Blue Diesel Days". Ian Allan Publishing. Archived from the original on 1 December 2008. Retrieved 16 November 2008.
15. Jackson 2013.
16. Height & Cresswell 1979.
17. "DRU touring exhibition". Archived from the original on 13 September 2010. Retrieved 10 September 2010.

Bibliography

• Height, Frank; Cresswell, Roy (1979). Design for Passenger Transport. Pergamon. p. 118. ISBN   978-1-4831-5309-4 . Retrieved 11 September 2015.
• Jackson, Tanya (2013). "6: In Search of an Identity". British Railways: The Nation's Railway. Stroud: The History Press. ISBN   978-0-7524-9742-6 . Retrieved 11 September 2015.

External links

• Official website
• Design Research Unit 1942–72 by Michelle Cotton Archived 17 August 2013 at the Wayback Machine
• Design Research Unit 1942–72 exhibition Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback Machine

• Classics of design
  One of the best early examples of intuitive global signs for public lavatories was that created for British Rail in the mid-1960s. As part of a major modernisation programme, the state railway was given a new and all-embracing corporate identity by DRU [Design Research Unit], a design studio founded by Marcus Brumwell and Misha Black in 1943. Working with Margaret Calvert and Jock Kinneir, who designed a distinctive Rail Alphabet typeface based on Helvetica, DRU devised a clean-cut and convincingly modern aesthetic that was applied to all locomotives, trains, stations, published material and, yes, signs for lavatories.

  — Glancey, Jonathan (11 September 2014). "The genius behind stick figure toilet signs". BBC.