A Blueprint for Life: Designers photographed by Steve Speller
Past display archive
17 September 2004 - 30 March 2005
Room 38a
Free
Martin John Lambie-Nairn
by Steve Speller
28 May 2004
NPG x126779
A Blueprint for Life is a celebration of the best design around, from the UK's road signage system by Margaret Calvert to the familiar Hovis bread wrapper by Garrick Hamm. The photographs are often witty and always humanistic. No doubt you will have your own views about who should have been included in the show. Indeed, we hope the exhibition sparks a discussion about the role and quality of design in 2004.
Bill Dunster; Sue Dunster (Bill Dunster Architects)
by Steve Speller
13 August 2004
NPG x126776
Mark Farrow
by Steve Speller
16 July 2004
NPG x126777
Shin Azumi; Tomoko Azumi
by Steve Speller
10 August 2004
NPG x126787
From the designers of the Yellow Pages to the architects responsible for the Gateshead Millennium Bridge, A Blueprint for Life builds up a fascinating profile of the people who literally shape our world.
Steve Speller's colour portraits, all taken using a digital camera, show the designers alongside their work: products, graphic design and buildings that were selected because they have all in different ways improved the quality of life.
Steve Speller took his first portrait of a designer for Blueprint magazine in 1986. During the Eighties and Nineties his approach to photographing designers was important in defining the identity of the magazine, which in its early days always had a designer staring from its striking covers. This exhibition gives the opportunity to develop the genre in a way that is appropriate for the 2000s. A full-colour catalogue, including rare interviews with each designer, is available from the Gallery bookshop priced £12.95.
Steve Speller's portraits for A Blueprint for Life were commissioned for the National Portrait Gallery and this display was curated by Patrick Myles, Creative Director of Blueprint.
Related portraits
- Ross Lovegrove (NPG x126783)
- Gerry McGovern (NPG x126784)
- Margaret Calvert (NPG x126785)
- Jan Kaplický; Amanda Levete (Future Systems) (NPG x126786)
- Shin Azumi; Tomoko Azumi (NPG x126787)
- Garrick Hamm (NPG x126788)
- Jony Ive (NPG x126789)
- Richard William Seymour; Dick Powell (NPG x126790)
- Lisa Dionne Morris (NPG x126782)
- Steve Speller (NPG x126770)
- Jane Atfield (NPG x126771)
- Eric Kuhne (NPG x126772)
- David Quay; Freda Sack (NPG x126773)
- George William Davies (NPG x126774)
- Will Alsop (NPG x126775)
- Bill Dunster; Sue Dunster (Bill Dunster Architects) (NPG x126776)
- Mark Farrow (NPG x126777)
- Nigel Goode; Paul Priestman (Priestman Goode) (NPG x126778)
- Martin John Lambie-Nairn (NPG x126779)
- Jim Eyre; Christopher John ('Chris') Wilkinson (Wilkinson Eyre Architects) (NPG x126780)
- Ben Kelly (NPG x126781)
- Craig Johnston (NPG x126791)
Related sitters
- William Allen Alsop
- Jane Atfield
- Shin Azumi
- Tomoko Azumi
- Margaret Calvert
- George William Davies
- Bill Dunster
- Sue Dunster
- Jim Eyre
- Mark Farrow
- Nigel Goode
- Garrick Hamm
- Sir Jonathan ('Jony') Paul Ive
- Craig Johnston
- Jan Kaplický
- Ben Kelly
- Eric Kuhne
- Martin John Lambie-Nairn
- Amanda Levete
- Ross Lovegrove
- Gerry McGovern
- Lisa Dionne Morris
- Dick Powell
- Paul Priestman
- David Quay
- Freda Sack
- Richard William Seymour
- Steve Speller
- Christopher John ('Chris') Wilkinson