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Tom Eckersley

All images are provided by University of the Arts London with all rights reserved by their respective owners: the Tom Eckersley Estate; London College of Communication; and Diageo plc. All images of posters taken by Graham Goldwater. All other images and text by Karyn Stuckey, Archivist with rights reserved by University of the Arts London, contact: archive-enquiries@arts.ac.uk, 02075149335. These details are links to larger images and additional information.

Tom Eckersley (1914-1995) was one of the foremost graphic designers of the twentieth century working in the UK. His works employ minimal text, instead transmitting their message by pared-down graphic elements and bold blocks of colour. Eckersley's career spanned from the 1930s until the 1990s, during which time he worked for a huge range of employees from London Transport, Gillette and Guinness to Crisis, World Wide Fund for Nature and the Inner London Education Authority.

Eckersley was also a teacher and established the first graphic design course in the UK at what was then called the London College of Printing (now London College of Communication).

The charm in many of Eckersley's works is their ability to convey a strong message through a simple design. The Collection shows how he developed his designs, as it includes artworks and preparatory designs as well as finished pieces. The Collection came from Eckersley's own workshop and as such reflects what he kept, partly to be used as teaching aids. The Collection has been fully digitised and is being posted in batches on the Visual Arts Data Service website.

All images are provided by University of the Arts London with all rights reserved by their respective owners: the Tom Eckersley Estate; London College of Communication; and Diagio. All images of posters taken by Graham Goldwater. All other images and text by Karyn Stuckey, Archivist, with rights reserved by University of the Arts London, contact: archive-enquiries@arts.ac.uk, 02075 149 335.

There are also links to selected websites and some suggested reading.

Collection descriptions

• Tom Eckersley Collection
• London College of Communication
• Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA)
• Salford Royal Technical Institute and Royal Technical College Records

Related links

October 2009: Designs on Delivery: GPO Posters from 1930 to 1960

• London College of Communication: the largest constituent college of University of the Arts London.
• Eckersley, Tom (Exploring 20th Century London website)
• Eckersley Archive: University of the Arts London (VADS: the online resource for visual arts); search VADS for Eckersley posters; and more about the VADS collection of Tom Eckersley posters (Intute website)
• London Transport Museum: the Museum's Ephemera Collection includes London Underground posters by Eckersley.
• RoSPA: RoSPA’s World War 2 Safety Posters collection includes posters by Eckersley
• Guinness Storehouse: the history of Guinness® advertising includes posters by Eckersley (Dublin, Ireland)
• Tom Eckersley: article and images; the Rennies Seaside Modern gallery has some posters by Eckersley (Folkestone, Kent)
• Adopt a Tiger: Malu Pothi lives in Suklaphanta Wildlife Reserve, Nepal (WWF-UK website, formerly the World Wildlife Fund)

Suggested reading

Links are provided to records on Copac for these items. Copac is the free, web based national union catalogue, containing the holdings of many of the major university and National Libraries in UK and Ireland plus a number of special libraries. For more information about accessing items see the FAQs on the Copac website.

• Poster Design by Tom Eckersley (1954) Records on Copac
• Tom Eckersley: Posters and other graphic works by Tom Eckersley (1980) Records on Copac
• Tom Eckersley: Fifty years of poster design for London Transport by Tom Eckersley (1984) Records on Copac
• Tom Eckersley: An exhibition of works from the Eckersley archive. With an introduction by Teal Triggs and an essay by Paul Rennie. (2005) Records on Copac
• London Transport posters: a century of art and design edited by David Bownes and Oliver Green, with contributions by Jonathan Black and others (2008) Records on Copac
• Cat o’ Nine Lives by Daisy Eckersley, with drawings by Tom Eckersley (1946) Records on Copac

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