drawing and typography beguiled the design anti-establishment in the last days of the air brush and Gill Sans. It reflected Britain’s faltering grasp of the great visual issues that David Mellor’s generation inherited; issues that would prove significant indeed to the nation’s economic fortune in the second half of the 20th century.

Inevitably, Scandinavia provided the impetus for a design career based on the proposition that modern society needs and deserves good modern products. The student Mellor was awarded travelling scholarships to Sweden and Denmark in 1952. Here before his eyes were the hives of design activity - Orrefors, Gustavsberg, Arabia, Royal Copenhagen and Bing and Groendahl, Kosta and Boda; of Henning Koppel and neighbouring Tapio Wirkkala and Finmar. There followed a period in Rome, at the British School, in a mixed community of painters, architects and designers. He left the RCA in 1954 with silver medal and his 'Pride' cutlery project already in prototype at Walker & Hall. His first workshop in the shadow of looms and mills in the heart of industrial Sheffield was soon busy with projects in stainless steel, silver plate and solid silver. And there were larger-scale industrial projects - street lighting columns for example, always a bugbear in the furnishing of British streets but cleverly solved by the Italians. David had made a mental note while a visiting student at the British School there. His slim, elegant version was taken up by the Midland firm Abacus and became the trend setter in the post-war design of this universal but much neglected element of town and country planning.