Eye Magazine

In his preface, Poynor explains that the book is not a conventional biography, though it necessarily includes biographical information. He writes: ‘The multifaceted nature of King’s endeavour and achievement means that there are two kinds of audience for this book. For designers, especially designers interested in the possibilities of self-initiated forms of design, King stands as an exceptional instance of the tendency termed “the designer as author”.

Poynor continues: ‘for readers who are not designers, King’s work stands as an illuminating example of an expanded form of authorship and book creation that is not founded on the production and primacy of text.’

The book covers all aspects of King’s career, including editorial work at the Sunday Times Magazine, City Limits and Crafts in the 1980s, some 1960s music design and his memorable, highly effective pro bono work for Rock Against Racism, the Anti-Nazi League and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement.

King’s own books included photographic biographies of Muhammed Ali and Trotsky, Ordinary Citizens (2003) and The Commissar Vanishes (1997), a painstakingly researched account of the way Soviet visual records were ‘revised’ by both officials and ordinary people.

The David King Collection (now housed in Tate Library and Archive.) is the largest of its kind in the world – more than 250,000 photographs, books, magazines and objects relating to the Russian revolutionary period, the Soviet Union and communist China.

Eye has published many pieces about David King’s work, including Christopher Wilson’s Reputations interview with King in Eye 48 (2003), Poynor’s Eye 95 article ‘Exposing the menace’ about King’s political posters (2018) and Simon Esterson’s Eye 71 review of Red Star Over Russia (2009).

Click this link to buy David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian at a 25 per cent discount. Enter your billing and delivery details when you check out and add the promotion code Y2101 when prompted. Shipping is free within the UK.

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