Ken Garland

In 2008, Garland founded Pudkin Books with his wife, artist Wanda Garland (Wistrich). Pudkin is known for a series of picture books each on the theme of "A Close Look at..." a particular subject.

In 1999, the manifesto was re-signed by 23 prominent graphic designers and critics, and republished as the First Things First 2000 manifesto. It appeared in Adbusters magazine. Both manifestos have been widely written about and republished. In 2012, Garland published "Last Things Last" in Eye no. 83, vol. 21, which, among other things, refuted the division between designers and clients, of "us and them", in favour of designer / client partnerships.

Garland taught throughout his career at the Central School of Art and Design (1986–91), University of Reading (1971-99), Royal College of Art (1977–87) and University of Brighton, among other institutions.

Garland was a prolific writer. His work has been published in Baseline, Blueprint, Creative Review and Eye magazine. He is the author of five books on design, including Graphics Handbook (1966), Illustrated Graphics Glossary (1980), Mr Beck’s Underground map (1994) and A word in your eye (1996).

Garland's most famous piece of writing about the ethics of graphic design is the First Things First manifesto, published in 1964. This text argued for a return to humanist design, positioned against mainstream advertising: "in favour of the more useful and more lasting forms of communication". Garland recalled first scribbling it down during a meeting of the Society of Industrial Arts: "I found I wasn't so much reading it as declaiming it ... it had become ... that totally unfashionable device, a Manifesto."

Garland was politically active throughout his career, notably as a member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament. Garland produced material for the CND from 1962–68. It was during this time that he redrew the peace sign to the simplified, bold graphic widely used today.

Garland established Ken Garland & Associates in 1962.

After graduation, Garland became the art editor of Furnishings magazine. In 1956, he became art editor of Design magazine, the trade journal of the Society of Industrial Arts, until 1962. This period was a foundational for Garland’s future work and was commissioned to go to Switzerland to survey Swiss graphic design. In 1962, he left Design to form his own studio, Ken Garland & Associates.

Garland was born in Southampton, and he grew up in Barnstaple, north Devon. In 1945, he enrolled at the Royal West of England Academy in Bristol and served in the Parachute Regiment after graduation where he was sent to Lübeck, Germany in 1948. He later studied design at London's Central School of Arts and Crafts, graduating in 1954. His classmates included Derek Birdsall, Alan Fletcher, Colin Forbes, Peter Wildbur and Philip Thompson. That same year, he married Wanda Wistrich.

Ken Garland (19 February 1929 – 20 May 2021) was a British graphic designer, photographer, writer and educator. Garland is known for his writing on design and the prolific work of his studio Ken Garland & Associates.