Nostalgists of a certain age will have noticed the presence of a giant Newton’s Cradle in the title sequence for Disney's current all-conquering Jilly Cooper adaptation, Rivals. What could be more evocative of this era of executive excess, both in and out of the boardroom, than this desk toy par excellence, a noisy set of swinging metal balls?
Now the men behind the ‘toy’ that served as the decade’s most enduring desktop distraction have written a book that tells their story. Richard Loncraine and Peter Broxton set up Loncraine Broxton in 1969, both art students at a particularly fertile point of countercultural innovation. Loncraine was the sculptor turned TV man, parlaying his fascination with kinetic art into a stalled fine art career, a world he swapped out for television.
However, a kinetic piece he created whilst at the RCA, ‘Ballrace’, was fast becoming a cult hit. Five chromed balls, suspended in a frame inspired by Marcel Breuer’s seminal Kandinsky chair, provided an addictively simple demonstration of Sir Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion – for every action in nature there is an equal and opposite reaction. As one ball clicked against another, the transmitted energy provided a harmonious – and satisfyingly audible – back and forth pattern.
Ballrace began sales in Harrods in 1967, but was begging to be properly commercialised. This book is the tale of the company that was set up to do just that. Loncraine persuaded Peter Broxton to join him in what was initially a very handmade affair, based in a rundown shop on Lots Road in Chelsea. Broxton, a painter, budding archaeologist and designer, joined in 1969, with financial whizz Edward Ehlers coming on board to handle the books.
Loncraine Broxton moved to Soho Square and thus began an enormously creative era designing and building, mostly by hand, what we would now refer to rather dismissively as ‘executive toys’. Blending fine art, design and craft sensibilities with a strong streak of pop art, L&B’s output ranged from furniture and one-off sculptural pieces to deliberately flippant novelties that might fill a stocking and elicit a wry smile.
Four Corners Books has reproduced many of the delights found within the L&B archive, from endless experiments in chrome, motion and magnets, to oversized deck chairs, fluid-filled puzzles, novelty pens and much, much more. Long before Catherine Hettinger dreamt up the fidget spinner in 1993, L&B were dreaming up ways to occupy idle hands.
With a strong sense of the absurd, and an eye for juxtaposition and surrealism, as well as a heady dose of punning end-of-the-pier humour (‘Loncraine Broxton, the company that put their balls on the desk of every successful businessman in Britain,’ begins one press release), there wasn’t an icon of 80s design that L&B didn’t make or at least have a hand in parodying.
Eventually, it all had to come to an end. ‘The world had changed ... The gift shop as a concept was getting tired,’ Loncraine says in the book, adding that ill-advised expansion was coming up against rivals with far lower overheads. ‘Chinese manufacturers were knocking off our ideas quicker than we could come up with new ones,’ he adds.
Whatever you think of the products themselves, this book is a delightful dive back into a simpler time, when a good idea wasn’t immediately lost to the wind and a small manufacturer could make a good living as well as be a valued employer. Above all, it’s a feast of forgotten designs, lovingly presented with layouts and typography by John Morgan studio and a series welcome, endearing and insightful recollections from the men themselves.
Loncraine Broxton: Innovations & Executive Toys 1969-1997, Four Corners Books, £15, FourCornersBooks.co.uk, @FourCornersBooks
