Illustration Today

Hardie was invited to speak and to design a poster for ‘Illustration Today: A Symposium on the State of the Art’, hosted by Parson’s School of Design in New York. The discussion entitled ‘On Designer or Illustrator? Rules and Games? Noticing things and getting things noticed? in conversation’ with Christoph Niemann, the New Yorker illustrator can be seen at http://fora.tv/2006/11/11/Illustration_Today. Hardie approached this project by considering whether it was possible to begin a dialogue within the poster announcing the event. He chose to design and ‘author’ a poster that undertook to open and encourage discussion and to set up the rules for a conversation with invented and illustrated opposites. These he then discussed as a part of his dialogue within the symposium at which he was a key presenter and described as: ‘the legendary British conceptual illustrator behind such icons as Pink Floyd‘s Dark side of the Moon’. The poster has since been published in: Creativity, New York, December 2006. A review of the Symposium by Terry Kattleman; Executive editor, p 10. 'Another conference highlight was a fascinating mini career retrospective, conducted by illustrator Christoph Niemann, with British legend George Hardie who doesn’t mind "being called a designer, an illustrator or both" ... practically everything the dryly witty Hardie said sounded like a quote from Bartlett’s [famous quotations]. "I’m quite content to do pictures that people don’t actually get". "I love limitations". You need rules to fight against." "With a fading memory, it’s very important to keep a notebook. I don’t, actually, but I feel very strongly that everyone else should."' Also published in: Designer Portraits by Melchior Imboden Hedesign Berlin. 2007 ISBN 978-3-9810544-8-4), pp 180-83. Designer Portraits exhibition: Kunstzone 04, Luzern. 8.9.07-31.12.07 Exhibited by invitation in the National Cultural Festival in Tokushima, 27 October 2007.