Yesterday I was lucky enough to be sent on an expedition to see the Alan Fletcher exhibition at the CUBE gallery in Manchester (expedition and exhibition in the same sentence – brave but brilliant). Alan Fletcher: 50 years of graphic work (and play), it was called. Basically, he had a masively successful career in design which spanned 50 years and having seen the exhibition, I can see why. Even if you’ve not heard of him, his worked has probably touched you at some point without you even realising. I particularly liked his preoccupation with the alphabet and his penchant for pencils. The alphabet was everywhere. Literally, every second thing, involved the alphabet. And I was amazed by some of his work from the 60s – it’s staggeringly modern, to the point where you can’t believe he thought of it all the way back then.

I didn’t take many pictures, I couldn’t've done it justice. But there were a couple of things I couldn’t resist snapping on my phone. So, go to the exhibition; if you can’t, then google the man, for goodness sake. It’s for the best.

So, here we go:

Pencils! I spent so long looking at this. There’s something movingly nostalgic about it. He made it in response to the fact that, when he was working at Phaidon, no-one could lend him a pencil. It was referred to in the exhibition as a ‘collage of redundant technology’. You can spend ages thinking about all the pencils in the land, can’t you? There were so many sections I wanted to photograph, but i went for this bit: McDonalds makes your day/pepsi/the one that has been sharpened at both ends (remember when you used to do that in school, then forget you’d done it and accidentally chew on it, yuk).

This one was called TWELVEUNUSUALALPHABETSBYCROSBYFLETCHERFORBES. Brilliant. I love a retro font.

And this is just his book. But could this be my favourite book cover ever? Quite possibly. Thoughts on mindscaping, moonlighting and daydreaming…. To gaze is to think. Are you left-eyed? Living out loud.

Genius.