He possessed an excellent understanding of branding, and his designs gave prominence to the product name, usually as part of the slogan (' Guinness for strength' and ' My Goodness. Gilroy's Guinness work was also an object lesson in the integration of word and image, the first being never a mere caption to the second. When Waterloo Bridge was rebuilt in 1934, Gilroy depicted the old structure being demolished by a Guinness-drinking workman who returned in 1945 to help lift the Eros statue (moved during wartime) back into place in Piccadilly Circus. Topicality was likewise a hallmark of his Guinness advertising. Gilroy too worked quickly, whether at a desk, in a studio, or at London Zoo, and was never without pencil, pad, or the back of an envelope to capture a particular image. My posters are, therefore, a kind of aesthetic meal-in-a-minute' ( Gilroy, quoted in Guinness Time, 14). ' The man in the street has no time for contemplation. Like Hassall, he also knew the value of humour in advertising for its ability instantly to attract and involve. His approach mirrors that of John Hassall (1868–1948), whose poster art Gilroy would have studied at the RCA and with whom his work shares common elements: Hassall's Jolly Fisherman, the bouncing Skegness lifeboat man, for example, is recognizably a blood relation of Gilroy's Guinness characters. His outrageous scenarios, especially the girder-carrier sequence from the early 1930s-in which a Guinness-drinking workman transports metalwork with ease-defy belief, except in the essential brand promise. Gilroy's tools were humour and hyperbole. His designs were deceptively simple: the colours strong, the palette sparse, the type bold, the background white, and the elements balanced but dramatically positioned to convey the product's two related themes of strength and goodness. Between 19 Gilroy was central to Guinness advertising, and his imaginative interpretations have become icons of British advertising. His first known illustration for the company appeared in 1930, and depicted St George and the dragon fighting over a pint of the black stuff. In 1928 Bensons secured a contract with the Irish brewing firm Guinness, on which Gilroy was employed and on whose brand image he was to have a significant influence. He was soon working on major accounts, including Bovril and Colman's mustard. Benson Ltd, with whom he remained before turning freelance in the late 1940s. In 1925 Gilroy joined the advertising agency S. 1902/3), a fellow student at the RCA the couple had one son, John Morritt ( b. On 6 September 1924, at St Helen's Church, Kensington, he married Gwendoline Peri Short ( b. After graduation he stayed on at the college as a teacher and between 19 taught figure drawing at Camberwell School of Art in south London. While at the RCA he produced commercial leaflets for the Hydraulic Engineering Co. He gained a scholarship in 1919 to the Royal College of Art (RCA) in London, where he won prizes for composition, decorative painting, and drawing he received the board of education certificate in 1920, a travelling scholarship in mural painting in 1922, and graduated in the following year.Īs a child Gilroy had copied cartoons from Punch and, aged fifteen, was employed as a caricaturist by the Newcastle Evening Chronicle. In 1916 Gilroy enlisted in the Royal Field Artillery, serving in France and Palestine. He was educated in Newcastle at Sandyford School (1903–9), Heaton Park Road upper school (1909–12), and King Edward VII School, where he gained a scholarship to Armstrong College art school, Durham University. Gilroy, John Thomas Young ( 1898–1985), graphic artist and portrait painter, was born on at 4 Crawhall Terrace, Newcastle upon Tyne, the second son and the fourth of eight children of John William Gilroy, marine artist and technical draughtsman, and his wife, Elizabeth, née Young.
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