At John Morgan’s funeral in September the vicar advised a narrative a couple of guide very near his coronary heart, the guide of Widespread Worship. It had been redesigned by Morgan and the anecdote was a couple of panel of commissioners who handed a mock-up of the guide between them and, moderately than taking a look at its design, competed with one another to see how a lot harm they might do; attempting to tear, drop, maintain up by a single leaf, scuff, shake and, finally, throw it throughout the room. Morgan, in the meantime, seemed on mortified, his meticulous work being brutalised. On the finish of the assembly the churchmen appeared happy that the guide may stand up to abuse, gave their assent and left with none additional remark. Morgan later made a movie concerning the incident, Clean Dummy.
It’s simple to think about Morgan, a considerate, humble but in addition assured designer feeling shocked, as a result of virtually nobody I do know cherished books greater than him. Not books in the way in which writers and teachers do, however books as objects, as issues. One in all his ultimate books was Usylessly, an actual reproduction of the primary 1922 version of James Joyce’s Ulysses however stripped of its textual content. As an alternative, among the many principally clean pages had been essays concerning the guide, concerning the journeys, idiosyncrasies and fates of the unique editions. It’s an incisive, humorous and revealing train about literary classics, which understands them much less as static and secure markers of cultural worth and extra as snowballs gathering materials and harm and the traces of use as they roll by way of historical past.
Morgan was born in Galgate, a small village south of Lancaster, in 1973. After native grammar faculty he studied graphic design and communication on the College of Studying (the place he would later additionally educate and the place he met his spouse, Claire Burton). There he developed his intense fondness for the historical past of design, a love that may endure and accumulate, in addition to for the exigencies and eccentricities of design over the centuries. He was profoundly literate, loving books as studying matter, which not all designers do, and as cultural artefacts that collect round them fantasy, nonsense, marginalia and reminiscence.
Biennale masterstroke
Though books had been his old flame, Morgan was arguably higher identified for nearly every little thing else. In structure, his work for David Chipperfield’s follow refined and redefined the workplace in tune with its minimal, trendy design sensibility grounded in an appreciation of historical past. When Chipperfield was appointed director of the 2012 Venice Structure Biennale, the graphics got over to Morgan’s studio and it adopted the typography of town’s attribute stencilled avenue indicators all through. It was a masterstroke of wayfinding and concrete branding, essentially the most visually coherent Biennale up to now.
He additionally designed the exquisitely understated signage for the brand new Tate Britain, utilizing a Georgian-inspired typeface for the outside signage and others inside together with brass dates inset within the ground. Extraordinarily refined and really helpful, at all times deferring to the artwork, by no means crowding it out. Morgan was beloved of architects (he additionally designed 6a’s web site, a form of repeatedly vertically scrolling scrapbook) partly as a result of he cherished structure himself. He usually used spatial metaphors, understanding graphics as a form of architectural downside, coping with quantity, floor, content material and time.
Morgan was equally revered within the artwork world. He designed the graphic id and all of the literature for London’s Raven Row gallery and had long-standing relationships with the artists Edmund de Waal and Helen Marten alongside producing dozens of books with artists, photographers and galleries, together with Juergen Teller and Christian Marclay. His redesign for ArtReview stays the journal’s distinctive template. His vary meant that he may simply as simply design a Charles and Ray Eames exhibition on the Barbican as new hand-painted lettering for the HMS Victory.
Platform 1
Morgan arrange his studio in 2000, at first in a north London co-operative workspace with different creatives and designers after which transferring to a former clerk’s workplace in Paddington Station overlooking Platform 1. It was a rare house, searching onto departing trains and Brunel’s nice iron roof however with company carpet and lighting within the stripped, bland fashion of post-nationalised utilities. Later the household would transfer to the Cotswolds, Morgan hopping on the prepare proper outdoors his workplace.
One in all his triumphs was a collection of reinterpretations of basic literature with 4 Corners Books in its “Familiars” collection, working with artists to broaden the notion of each the illustrated and the artist’s guide. These included a giant saddle-stitched folio of Oscar Wilde’s The Image of Dorian Grey (with Gareth Jones) and a beautiful version of Nikolai Gogol’s The Nostril (with Rick Buckley) with a hardback cowl and cut-out nostril on the vanguard. There was additionally a vivid version of Treasure Island (with Shiraz Bayjoo) with mesmerising, bleeding color blots, haunting colonial-era photographs and an enigmatic pull-out map.
You might speak to Morgan concerning the lowest or the best of tradition and study one thing stunning
This collection provides indication of Morgan’s urge for food for design. He cherished Modernism, Swiss design, the grid, stripped-back and sans serif kind, however he was simply as keen on early printed books and Nineteenth-century ephemera, French paperbacks, and trashy and shiny magazines. It was this love of design in all its incarnations that made him such good firm. You might speak to him concerning the lowest or the best of tradition and study one thing stunning. Softly spoken and with a measured voice that was at all times a pleasure to take heed to, Morgan by no means shed his light Lancashire accent. His erudition and data may have been intimidating had been it not for his preparedness to pay attention and keenness to study. These qualities made him a well-respected trainer and, along with the College of Studying, he taught guide design on the Royal School of Artwork in London and ran a unit on the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf.
An exacting thoughts
However, Morgan at all times knew precisely what he needed. The architect Tom Emerson, co-founder of 6a, who labored carefully with Morgan over a few years, advised me a narrative about how Morgan got here to him with a swatch of colors for use for the quilt of his guide Soiled Previous River. Every one, Emerson mentioned, was the identical shade of brown. “You’ll be able to have any one in every of these you want,” Morgan advised him. “Simply select whichever one.”
In 1995 Morgan began working with the revered British designer Derek Birdsall at his Omnific studio. Birdsall was a bridge to each Modernism and pop, and it was right here that he began engaged on Widespread Worship, later taking the undertaking with him when he established his personal studio (with Birdsall’s blessing, if that’s the proper phrase on this context).
Morgan’s intent was to replace the prayer guide with a cleaner, extra readable textual content. It got here in quite a lot of codecs every characterised by its full title “Widespread Worship” horizontally and “Providers and Prayers for the Church of England” studying vertically, organized right into a crucifix in foiled letters. Inside, a Gill Sans typeface referred to the Church’s personal typographic histories of Modernism however produced readability and house. The paper inventory was ivory (as in outdated prayer books with tissue-thin leaves) to make for a extra humane expertise; he referred to Dutch typographer and curator Willem Sandberg’s notion of “heat printing”. There are few new books that handle to replicate so utterly on English tradition, literary and graphic historical past with such self-restraint.
Books as muses
Extra just lately, Morgan based the digital foundry Abyme together with his colleague Adrien Vasquez, and an imprint, Ten Thousand Angels Press. And he completed writing his final guide, Baskerville’s Teardrop Explodes: A Choice of Books as Muses, simply earlier than he died, in his library, from a mind tumour that had been identified as terminal in 2024.
Tall, bald, clean-shaven, invariably wearing black (usually carrying an extended coat), Morgan was a particular and really much-loved determine in London’s cultural scene, even a few years after he had left for the nation. His wry, pleasant smile and knowledgeable dialog will probably be enormously missed, however his books and his deep affect on British design tradition will final.
• John Morgan, born Galgate, Lancashire, 6 January 1973. Labored at Omnific (with Derek Birdsall) 1995-2000; based John Morgan Studio 2000. Married Claire Burton 2003 (two sons, one daughter); died Chadlington 2 September 2025
