Michael Johnson (graphic designer)

Michael Johnson
Michael Johnson in 2010
Born	26 April 1964 Derby, England, UK
Nationality	British
Occupation	Graphic designer
Website	www.johnsonbanks.co.uk

Michael Johnson (born 1964, Derby) is a British designer and brand consultant. In 1992 he founded design studio johnson banks in London, UK.

Biography

After graduating Michael worked as a designer and consultant for Wolff Olins, Sedley Place, Smith and Milton, London; Billy Blue and Emery Vincent, in Melbourne and Sydney; and Dentsu, Tokyo.^[1]

In 1992 he set up johnson banks and went on to advise and create brands for clients including Virgin Atlantic, Science Museum (UK), Shelter (UK), The Guggenheim Foundation (New York, USA), Sendai Space Observatory (Japan) and Pew Center for Arts and Culture (Philadelphia, USA). As well as creating visual identities for a range of clients, Johnson has designed various posters and stamps including a set celebrating The Beatles for Royal Mail in 2006.^[2]

In addition Johnson writes for many design journals, judges design competitions and lectures worldwide as far afield as Toronto, Tokyo, Berlin and Goa on branding, identity issues and design history. He has won most of the design world’s most prestigious awards (including eight D&AD ‘pencils’), has nearly twenty designs in the V&A’s permanent collection and was D&AD President in 2003,^[3] one of the youngest presidents ever. The Independent Newspaper selected him as one of the 10 most notable British Designers in 2003, and in 2009 The Guardian Newspaper named him as one of the UK’s top 50 designers.^[4] D&AD named his as the seventh most awarded designer in its history in its fifty year celebrations in 2012.^[5] The second edition of his first book Problem Solved^[6] was published in autumn 2012.^[7]

The Guardian has described Johnson as ‘Bright, fluent, relentlessly articulate’,^[8] Design Week said ‘Johnson has a knack of being able to distil the complex, diffuse or workaday down into simple, intelligent, witty messages’.^[9] In the late nineties, The Sunday Times described Johnson as ‘The Government’s favourite designer’. He has been named ‘One of Europe’s finest graphic designers’^[10]

Awards and recognition

D&AD Awards

• 7 D&AD Silver awards (‘yellow pencils’; 1991, 1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003 and 2004)^[11]
• 1 D&AD Gold award (‘black pencil’) for 'Fruit & veg stamps'^[12]
• A further five nominations, three commendations, 50+ designs ‘in-book’ for D&AD^[11]

Design Week Awards

• 13 Design Week Awards including Best of Show in 2004^[11]

Design Week Creative Survey

• 1st place most creative UK design company in the 1999^[13] and 2004^[14]
• 1st place overall in Top 50 creative companies in the UK in 2005^[15]
• 1st place for both Print and Corporate Identity in 2006^[15]

Art Directors Club of New York Awards

• 4 Art Directors Club of New York ‘cubes’ and six distinctive merits:
  • Gold: Beatles Stamps (87th Awards, 2008)^[16]
  • Gold: The Watch Gallery (72nd Awards, 1993)^[17]
  • Silver: Fruit & Veg stamps (83rd Awards, 2004)^[18]
  • Bronze: Glenfiddich Barrel Art (88th Awards, 2009)^[19]
  • Distinctive merit: Chimps in Wigs (74th Awards, 1995)^[20]
  • Distinctive merit: Decca Synchronisation (76th Awards, 1997)^[21]
  • Distinctive merit: Canna Kendall stationery (76th Awards, 1997)^[22]
  • Distinctive merit: Polygram Annual Report (76th Awards, 1997)^[23]
  • Distinctive merit: Kyoto Mailer (82nd Awards, 2003)^[24]
  • Distinctive merit: Think London (84th Awards, 2005)^[25]

Other Awards

• 1 best of category (2008) from American ID magazine^[11]
• 22 designs held in the permanent design selection of the V&A Museum^[11][26]
• Design Week Hot 50, listed 2003, 2004, 2008, 2010, 2011^[27]
• Shortlisted, BBC Design awards 1996^[11]
• Featured as one of the 10 best graphic designers in the UK in The Independent 2003^[28]
• Featured as one of the 50 best designers in the UK in Guardian Newspaper in 2009^[29]
• 7th most awarded designer of all time at the D&AD fiftieth anniversary^[30]

Exhibitions

Solo

• Words and Pictures – the design work of Michael Johnson and johnson banks at Creation Gallery Ginza, Japan in 2004^[31]
• Arkitypo at the Arup Phase 2 space, London in 2012^[32]

Group

• D&AD Awards Exhibitions 1991,1993, 1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2010, 2012
• The Power of the Poster, V&A, London, 1998^[33]
• Rewind - 40 years of Design and Advertising, V&A, London 2002^[34]
• Somewhere Totally Else, European Design Biennial, Design Museum, London 2003 and 2005^[11]
• Communicate: British Independent Graphic Design since the Sixties, Barbican Gallery, London 2004/05^[35]
• Creation Gallery group shows, 2005-2009, Ginza, Tokyo
• Super Contemporary, Design Museum, London 2009^[36]
• Glenfiddich Barrel Art, Studio Warehouse Gallery, Glasgow 2008^[37]
• The Art of Lost Words, The German Gym, London in 2009, Peninsula Art Gallery Plymouth 2011^[38]
• What Design Can do, Beijing Design Week, Beijing, 2011^[39]
• Art in Miniature, London Design Festival, 2012^[40]

Bibliography

As author

• Johnson, Michael (2002).Problem Solved: a primer in design and communication. First edition. London, UK: Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780714844534
• Johnson, Michael (2012).Problem Solved: a primer in design and communication. Second edition. London, UK: Phaidon Press. ISBN 978-0714864730

As contributor

• Myerson, Jeremy et al. (2004).Rewind: 40 years of design and advertising. London, UK: Phaidon Press. ISBN 9780714844602
• Heller, Steven (2004). The Education of a Typographer. New York, USA: Allworth Press. ISBN 978-1581153484.

Solo monographs

• johnson banks; Fletcher, Alan (2005). Johnson Banks (Design & Designer). France: Pyramyd editions. ISBN 978-2350170046

Featured in

• D&AD Annual, 1991-1994, 1996-2012
• A smile in the mind, Phaidon 1996
• New Design London, Rockport, 1999
• Typography, Rotovision, 1999
• Experimental Formats, Rotovision, 2000
• What is Graphic Design, Rotovision 2002
• Identify, Rotovision 2002
• Graphic Originals, Rotovision 2002
• Creative Island, Laurence King 2002
• Thames + Hudson Dictionary of Graphic Design + Designers (Thames + Hudson 2003)
• Size Matters, Rotovision 2004
• Logo Design Workbook, Rockport, 2004
• Communicate catalogue, Laurence King 2004
• Foundations of Art and Design, Laurence King, 2004
• 20 years Creation Gallery 2004
• Colour Design Workbook, Rockport 2005
• A History of Graphic Design, Meggs, 2005
• More Paperwork, Phaidon, 2005
• Logo, Laurence King, 2007
• Master of Design: logos and identity, Rockport 2008
• Graphic Design Referenced, Rockport, 2009
• Graphic: Designers sketchbooks, Thames and Hudson 2010
• The A-Z of Visual Ideas, Laurence King, 2011
• Love Earth, Victionary, 2011
• Postcard, Laurence King 2011
• Symbol, Laurence King, 2011
• Logotype, Laurence King 2012
• Relogo, Sandu Publishing 2011
• Not for sale, Victionary, 2011
• Logology, Victionary, 2011
• Go, Stop, Slow, Eat: How Typography influences behaviour, Allworth Press 2011
• Graphic Design Process: Skolos Wedell 2012
• Los Logos 6, Gestalten, 2012
• Branding Element Logos vol 2, SendPoints, 2012
• Infinite Pattern, Sandu Cultural Media, 2012
• Infinite Typography, Sandu Cultural Media, 2012
• Black & White: New Monochrome Graphics, Victionary, 2012
• Way of the Sign III, ArtPower, 2012
• British Posters, Advertising, Art & Activism, V&A 2012

References

1. Entry for Michael Johnson on Debrett's People of Today
2. Article about the Beatles stamps in the New York Times
3. Past presidents of D&AD
4. The Guardian's Top 50 designers
5. D&AD's Seventh Most Awarded designer in D&AD's history
6. Problem Solved (first edition) on the Phaidon website
7. Problem Solved (second edition) on the Phaidon website
8. Article from Campaign Magazine
9. Article in Design Week magazine
10. Zappaterra, Yolanda (1999). Typography: Real-world typographic projects - from brief to finished solution, p.116. Rotovision SA, Switzerland. ISBN 2-88046-469-2.
11. Debrett's People of Today entry on Michael Johnson
12. Page about the Black Pencil award winning project Fruit & veg stamps
13. "Creative Survey", Design Week, London, 1999.
14. "Creative Survey", Design Week, London, 2004.
15. "Creative Survey", Design Week, London, November 2006.
16. Beatles stamps on the New York Art Director's Club website
17. Miller, Anistatia.R (1993). The 72nd Art Directors Annual, p.417. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-193-6.
18. Fruit & Veg stamps on the New York Art Director's Club website
19. Glenfiddich Barrel Art on the New York Art Director's Club website
20. Davis, Myrna (1995). The 74th Art Directors Annual, p.335. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-244-4.
21. Lenthe, Antje (1997). The 76th Art Directors Annual, p.137. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-340-8.
22. Lenthe, Antje (1997). The 76th Art Directors Annual, p.203. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-340-8.
23. Lenthe, Antje (1997). The 76th Art Directors Annual, p.311. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-340-8.
24. Davis, Myrna (2003). Art Directors Annual 82, p.328. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-88046-775-6.
25. Davis, Myrna (2005). Art Directors Annual 84, p.270. RotoVision, SA. ISBN 2-940361-22-3.Think London on the New York Art Director's Club website
26. Johnson Banks's works held by the V&A
27. Michael Johnson listed in the Design Week Hot 50 in 2011
28. Hilpern, Kate (2003). "The Top Brass: the 10 leading graphic designers in Britain, as chosen by their fellow experts", The Independent Newspaper, London, 2003.
29. "The Top 50", The Guardian, London, 1 September 2007.
30. 7th Most awarded designer in D&AD's 50 year history
31. Exhibition listing on Tokyo Art Beat
32. Past event listing on Arup website
33. Exhibition summary on the V&A website
34. Rewind exhibition microsite
35. Exhibition summary on the Barbican website
36. Exhibition summary on the Design Museum's website
37. Article about the exhibition on the Design Boom website
38. Exhibition website
39. Article about the exhibition on the Creative Review website
40. Entry on London Design Festival website

External links

• Official johnson banks website
• Debrett's People of Today entry on Michael Johnson
• Interview with Johnson in Computer Arts magazine