Alan Kitching

Alan Kitching is world renowned for his use of the letterpress in typographic design and his printmaking. Using wood and metal letterforms he creates visuals both for commissions and for his own limited edition prints at his solo shows in London and Barcelona. He has also contributed to shows in the Pompidou Centre Paris, the British Library and the Barbican Art Gallery London.

Appointed a Royal Designer for Industry in 1994, Alan is also an honorary Fellow of The Royal College of Art and visiting professor to our very own University of the Arts London. So, if we're lucky, we'll have workshops like these that he conducted for Eye Magazine.

Alan has an interesting way of working. When he gets a commission, he explains, he doesn't do a rough sketch. "By the time I've done it, I've done it... I work a little bit like an actor. I have to learn my lines. I have to get the copy into my memory so I'm not looking at the words on the paper anymore. I learn the lines, I go through it again and again so I know what to copy off by heart". He doesn't use sketching to plan out his arrangements, he works as closely and directly with the physical letter-forms. In his poster, African, he explains that the placement of the C is where it is because that particular font has that particular width, not because he'd planned it that way before starting.

'More Pricks than Kicks', one of his less coloured works, creates an impressive feeling of depth by partially inverting the colour of the overlaid small text. The burnt-looking larger heading in the background looks charred and distorts the reading further.

This iconic-looking typographic map of the Southbank immediately gives you a sense of what it is about. I can't quite tell whether I'm reading the words or just looking at the picture.