The typographer and designer John Miles, who has died aged 92, had a partnership with Colin Banks that was responsible for some of the most high-profile public sector identity schemes of the 1970s and 80s. Chief among them was that for the Post Office, particularly the alphabet of double line lettering, created in 1972 and still in use by Royal Mail; and the British Telecom identity (1980), with its unabashed modernist style and distinctive blue and yellow livery that was replaced only in the 90s.
Banks and Miles had built an enviable and enduring roster of clients, including the Consumers’ Association, the British Council and London Zoo, who not only valued their imaginative design skills but also their long-term approach to business relationships, many of which lasted decades. This approach sometimes had its drawbacks – the new look that they had painstakingly developed for the Greater London council (GLC) in the 1970s was cancelled at the last minute following a change in leadership.
Other household names included London Transport, City and Guilds, the British Airports Authority and Monotype, as well as international clients such as Philips in Eindhoven, the European parliament in Brussels, the United Nations University in Tokyo and hotels in Cape Town, Amsterdam and the Canary Islands.
Born in Streatham, south London, to Thomas, who worked for an insurance company, and Winifred (nee Seeley), John attended Beckenham and Penge grammar school, then undertook two years’ national service stationed largely in north Africa. In the garrison library at Benghazi, Libya, he came across Herbert Read’s 1934 book on the principles of design, Art and Industry, which caused him to abandon his place at teacher-training college and concentrate on a creative career.
Following his demob in 1952 he was accepted at Beckenham School of Art (now Ravensbourne University London), where he was drawn towards typography. Three days a week were spent at college and the rest of the time at a printing school in Maidstone, where he first met Banks.
On graduation John received a scholarship to study typography and punch cutting under Jan van Krimpen and SL Hartz at the banknote and stamp printing firm Joh. Enschedé en Zonen in the Netherlands. Following his return to Britain in 1955 he was offered a job as assistant to Hans Schmoller at Penguin Books. Sitting at a desk with “Half-point” Schmoller (so named because of his attention to detail), “one of the finest typographic designers in Europe”, according to John, the young designer could not believe his luck. He described his time there, mostly spent designing text pages for Penguin, Pelican and Puffin books, as “a true apprenticeship”.
Although there was the occasional interesting side project, such as the Puffin Noah’s Ark press-out and assemble book he designed and illustrated (1958), after three years working within the confines of the Penguin format John began to feel restless. When Banks, who had pursued a freelance career, asked if he would like to go into partnership, he accepted.
They initially worked out of a damp basement in Ebury Street, in central London. The Zoological Society of London was one of their first clients, and they were given some jobs by Schmoller at Penguin. They relocated to Grafton Street in the 60s before moving again, to the former Literary Institution building in Blackheath, which is where I worked for them in the 90s.
In 1986, Banks and Miles won the gold medal at the Brno Biennale of Graphic Design for the British Telecom identity. BT’s ensuing decision to change agencies and branding was lambasted both by the Sun, “BT blows millions on Trumpet”, and the Guardian: “The new identity for Britain’s least favourite private monopoly has been blamed for a collapse in client and public confidence on account of its expense, creative ineptitude and the media drubbing it took.”
John’s career straddled the revolution in the mechanics of design and typography and he was an early adopter of the personal computer, overseeing the introduction of this new technology to Banks and Miles in the 80s. In 1987, during the time he was typographic adviser to Her Majesty’s Stationery Office, he wrote the bestselling Design for Desktop Publishing, while enforcing the rule in the Banks and Miles studio that “designers get their thoughts organised on paper before they try to work on screen”.
Enthusiastic, friendly and generous with his knowledge, John acted as a governor at the Central School of Art and Design (1978-85), and an external examiner for the London College of Printing (1984-88), and served on many design and printing societies and committees.
Banks and Miles closed shop in 1996, and John and his wife, Louise (nee Wilson), a sculptor whom he had met at art school and married in 1955, retired to Suffolk.
Louise died in 2021. John is survived by their children, Catherine, Sophie and Jo, and six grandchildren, Alison, Lucy, Stan, Louis, Starsky and Maddie.
• John Seeley Miles, typographer and design consultant, born 11 February 1931; died 27 November 2023
