Design Research Unit: Book Launch

Book launch: Tuesday 29 November 2011, 8.00pm to 11.00pm

Cubitt invites you to attend the launch of Design Research Unit 1942-72, a new publication surveying the history of the multidisciplinary practice responsible for some of the most important design produced in post-war Britain.

The publication follows the Cubitt Gallery exhibition Design RDesign Research Unit: 1942-72esearch Unit 1942-72 curated by Michelle Cotton that has toured to Norwich University College of the Arts Gallery; International Project Space, Bournville; Liverpool John Moores University; Bonington Gallery, Nottingham, Tate St Ives and is currently at the Cooper Gallery, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art and Design, Dundee. It features some of DRU’s most experimental and iconic work  from Naum Gabo’s proposal for a Jowett car to exhibition design and architecture for the 1951 Festival of Britain and corporate identities for Watneys brewery, British Rail, Ilford, the London Transport network and Imperial Chemical Industries (ICI). Based on original research, it documents an approach that was shaped by inter-war developments in artistic discourse and post-war trends in industry and communication; in particular the accelerated demand for corporate design.

The launch will be hosted upstairs at the Old Doctor Butler’s Head which features in the publication as the venue for the Bassett Gray annual ‘bibbing ceremonies’ of the 1920s and 30s.