1970s ĭean designed the logo to the independent label Fly Records in 1970. At the same time, he wanted to release a book on architecture but faced rejection from 27 different publishers. The experience led Dean to establish a commission before starting work he wanted to do, leading to a short period of financial hardship. Dean began to pick up work where he could, including covers for various jazz artists for Vertigo Records which he disliked, calling them "austere exercises" and too restrictive for the ideas he wished to convey. He decided to venture into cover design not purely for the money, but its wider audience and its use "as a propaganda tool showing people what might be and what could be". Dean earned more money from the album's cover than he had done with architecture related work, and realised covers took much less effort. Dean agreed, and was paid "around £5,000" for his work. This led to the design of his first album cover, Gun (1968) by rock band Gun, after owner Ronnie Scott asked him to adapt a demonic-themed design that Dean originally made in his sketchbook for his thesis, for the album's cover. In 1968, during his third year at the Royal College, Dean was assigned a project which involved the design of a contemporary landscape seating area of the upstairs disco at Ronnie Scott's Jazz Club in Soho. It is now a part of the permanent collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The chair remains one of Cherrill's favourite pieces. The design was completed when Dean was one of the few students picked from the Royal College to design and make objects in famed designer Cherrill Scheer's factory.
It has been considered to be a predecessor to the bean bag, whereby the chair compresses and fully adapts to the shape and size of the user. He filed a patent for it in the following year. Career 1960s Īmong Dean's first successes was his sea urchin chair design which spawned from his research at the Royal College and completed in 1967. He considered Rick Griffin's artwork for Aoxomoxoa (1969) by The Grateful Dead as his "first big visual shock" and bought the album prior to owning a record player. By this time, Dean was interested in "designing the future boxes for people to live in". He graduated from the college in 1968 with a masters first degree honours, and won a silver medal for "work of special distinction". He did a thesis about "producing a sense of tranquillity in domestic architecture". Among his research was the "psychology of architecture" and what made people feel comfortable in buildings. He enrolled at the college in 1965 to study furniture design and became a student of Professor David Pye. Towards the end of the course at Canterbury, Dean was faced with the option of pursuing either architecture or industrial design one of his tutors thought neither were for him, and recommended that Dean study at the Royal College of Art in London. As the school was trying to become accredited in the subject, Dean bypassed its foundation level course but disliked the way the subject was taught and questioned the teachers as to why people had to live in "boxes" and their response in that "form follows function". He was removed from a life drawing class by the principal for being "young and impressionable", and was informed he could not take it due to maths and physics being his other subjects, leading a switch to studying industrial design.
In 1959, after the family had returned to England, Dean attended Ashford Grammar School followed by his entry in 1961 to the Canterbury College of Art studying silversmithing and furniture design and graduated with a National Diploma in Design. He has cited landscape, "and the pathways through it", as his greatest influence and source of inspiration. Dean was very keen on natural history as a child, and Chinese landscape art and feng shui became particular influences on him during his time in Hong Kong. Much of Dean's childhood was spent in Greece, Cyprus, and, from age 12 to 15, Hong Kong, so his father could carry out army duties. He has three siblings, brother Martyn and sisters Penny and Philippa. His mother studied dress design at Canterbury School of Art before her marriage and his father was an engineer in the British Army.
William Roger Dean was born on 31 August 1944 in Ashford, Kent.
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