Interview with Michael Mayhew at the National Theatre

When Michael Mayhew retired as the NT’s Art Director in December 2009, he had been responsible for, or involved with, the images for well over 600 productions at the National Theatre. Here he talks to Rodney Mylius, Brand Guru for Marks & Spencer.

RM Can we go back to the beginning? Even before you started working at the National, you had ties with the theatre?

MM My father, George Mayhew, was a poster designer for the Royal Shakespeare Company, where he worked with John Goodwin who was head of press and publications under Peter Hall. Peter was coming here to run the National Theatre, and my father was due to come with him and John as their graphic designer, but sadly he died. John carried on working with designer Ken Briggs who had been designing for the NT under Olivier, I believe from the beginning. Then Briggs’ assistant, Richard Bird, took over full-time.

Meanwhile, I had been working as a freelance graphic designer doing bits and pieces, including designing posters for the Hampstead Theatre. One day, out of the blue, one of the NT Press Officers called me up. He had remembered my work and me. The company was just about to move from the Old Vic into the new building with its three theatres and they realised there was too much work for Richard alone. They asked me to come in and help out on a freelance basis in 1976 and I’m still here in 2009.

By this time the entire company were about to move here to this building and out of the Old Vic?

Yes. The National Theatre offices, including the Press Office, of which Graphics was then a part, were in post war prefabs just off Stamford Street. I worked there before we all moved into the brand new building and it was opened to the public, theatre by theatre.

How did you put together a poster in those days?

The director of the play would tell us the story and describe the style of the piece. Then we’d go away and, in a much more detailed way than now, try and evoke the story, the feeling and the time and placing of the play. Each play is of its period and the treatment for the poster was also of that period

Presumably then, when you were sitting in the auditorium and you were looking at a Victorian illustration on the programme cover, it was a Victorian play you were about to enjoy?

Yes. Our work was more to tell you a story about the piece rather than sell it to you. That is why the posters would sit happily on your wall as artworks and look very handsome on the programme covers, close up. I felt that a lot of those posters didn’t work from a distance although they were very beautiful when you were up close.

Designing a poster for an NT production became an obligatory project for graphics students, so beautiful was the work.

The graphics were very fine. We worked with talented illustrators and photographers and the approach was well liked by Peter Hall’s successors, Richard Eyre and then Trevor Nunn. In the mid-80s, Richard Bird moved on to set up his own company, and I became the NT’s chief graphic designer. We tried to keep moving things on in tune with the times. In 1988, for example, we became the Royal National Theatre, and introduced a new corporate logotype. All the time, the task of marketing the theatre was becoming more complex and more competitive. We had to work harder to stand out in the arts world but I would say that our design approach, certainly to the posters, remained the same up until the Nicholas Hytner took over as Director in 2003.

Which is when we first met, and I remember your discussions about changing how we would all now look at the National Theatre. Seeing it as a brand with its own recognisable image.

Yes, but let me go back a small step and pre-Nick, when we would sit down with the director and the writer, if he or she were still alive, and the publications and marketing team, and discuss what sort of image we would have for the poster. Often the director had not even started rehearsing at that point, and probably wouldn’t have thought of the play in terms of what sort of poster it should have.

When Nick arrived we devised a way to cut out these meetings. I would read the play and then come up with some ideas based on that reading for the brochure image, which is the first time a production is introduced to the public. The image chosen would then go on to become the poster for the play. I would show Nick my ideas, we would then show the director and the writer, and in the majority of cases it worked. Of course they do have a say and if they didn’t like it, I would have another look at it. II would say eight times out of ten – this approach works.

Nick Hytner sees everything and I keep him in mind as my client, whilst the director or writer of the play is Nick’s responsibility. I understand it is quite a unique way of working.

Talk me through the brand image for the theatre. Your use of typography, photography and colour,

Initially, for Nick’s first seasons, we decided we wanted to go with black-and-white photographs for their sense of immediacy, to headline the change that came with Nick’s arrival. We commissioned photographs of leading actors, and all of the other images came from the same library, Getty Images. This later changed to Corbis, who now supply most of our photographic images.

Later, when I changed from black-and-white to colour photographs I actually did it because I felt a couple of the new images needed to be in colour to work. I showed them to Nick, who said ‘Ahh, I was just going to talk to you about moving our image on a bit’. So it happened by osmosis and because two of the images needed to be in colour, our overall image moved on as well. That’s how it happens.

Now I try to have a palette of colours for each season. My whole palette is one of big, bold, bright colours. I am not interested in subtleties within posters. I was taught that a poster only works if you can read the title from the other side of the road, so the play is the thing. I use one simple typeface for everything. In the early days I did try to make the title’s typography reflect something within the play. With Henry V, for example, I made the title into a spear/arrow. It doesn’t work all the time and often I would just make shapes with the words. It’s more important to make them very legible and interactive with the image.

How do you work with the marketing team?

We do four or five brochures a year, in which there are up to five new productions, each of which will require its own new image. Working on them all at the same time means I can avoid four posters, for instance, using the face of a girl. There has to be some variation and pace.

I work closely with the head of marketing. We talk a lot so I know which way things are heading. For instance, with our Travelex sponsored seats for a tenner, I know we are appealing to and getting a new younger audience. I will still always keep our brand look however. Our marketing team are happy because you can see from a distance that a project is from the NT and that for the first time we have an identity.

You now work across different media, not just in print?

We now have designers creating ‘flash’ mailings and other interactive material, besides the printed stuff. We have interactive screens in the foyers to showcase plays like War Horse, where we show the production process in some depth, not least for education purposes. We’ve also designed the touch-screen monitors in the Bookshop windows. We are, in effect, turning our posters into moving images.

However, your production or poster images are still at the core of all this activity. Do the public have favourites from your work?

If you measure it in terms of what sells in the bookshop you’ll usually find the most popular posters are those that show an actor the audience has enjoyed seeing on stage. Everything is geared to the stage and so if people have enjoyed the play, they’ll enjoy the poster.

So now that you’re stepping aside, how do you see the NT’s graphic future?

I’ve been working with Charlotte Wilkinson, the new Art Director, for four[?] years now, and I’m absolutely confident the National’s image is in safe hands. I look forward to watching how things develop. And I’ll still be doing some consultancy for the NT, too.