Angela Reeves Collection

This series of design ephemera and memorabilia was collected by Angela Reeves, 1942-2008 and kindly donated by her family.

The collection contains works designed by Angela as well as ephemera and memorabilia relating to all aspects of graphic design collected by her.

Early drawings and sketches by Angela date back to her school and college days. A number of the drawings that she produced indicate that they were submitted as part of a portfolio for entrance to the London School of Printing and Graphic Arts.

Later designs reflect both her freelance work and that carried out while employed by companies such as British European Airways, the BBC, Royal Mail, New York University, Chermayeff and Geismar, Ilford and the Torin Corporation. Many publications relating to the industry were collected and retained by Angela over her life time and form part of this collection. These include pamphlets, booklets, annual reviews and promotional material published by Newell and Sorrel (Utopian Papers), Pentagram Design and the Wynkyn de Worde Society.

Also forming part of the collection are news stories, memorabilia and ephemera that relate to people and events that featured in Angela's life. The people include Marcel Breuer, Claes Oldenberg and F.H.K. Henrion while the events include the 1975 American bicentenial exhibition at the British Museum and the 1968 Mexican Olympics.

Angela had a solid career in corporate graphic design and she kept pretty much everything from her career - from all her exercises at Foundation at Chelsea College , through most of her work at the London College of Printing in the early 60's. She then went straight into working for BEA and other corporate organisations, was self employed for some time, was president of the Design Research Unit, worked with Chermayeff and Geismar in New York 68 - 72; ran the BBC Educational books design section; worked for Royal Mail in stamp commissioning through the 80's and early 90's and then went back to New York to work on the design standards of the Smithsonian Museums again for Chermayeff and Geismar. She also worked a lot at Exeter and Brighton supporting design student portfolios.

Biographical note created by family member.

All items are accessible

We do not expect that there will be major accruals to this collection but the University would welcome the chance to discuss any further potential donations of records relating to Angela Reeves or graphics and design more generally.

A detailed catalogue is available at https://thearchive.northampton.ac.uk/records/AR/01/GRA

Normal copyright restrictions apply

The University of Northampton takes copyright seriously and only makes content available in its Archive Catalogue in accordance with current UK legislation.

All reasonable effort is made by The University of Northampton to obtain copyright holders' consent before publishing the images represented in our Archive Catalogue. We would like to ask that any copyright owners who are not properly identified in our Archive Collections contact us so that we may make the necessary corrections or removals.

We do not expect that there will be major accruals to this collection but the University would welcome the chance to discuss any further potential donations of records relating to Angela Reeves or graphics and design more generally.