Object of the week: Mid-century Christmas card designs by Ealing Studios
As an annual tradition throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, Ealing Studios’ advertising director S. John Woods designed a special Christmas card. The results were typical of the studio’s graphic design and visual invention.
Sydney John Woods was a graphic designer, painter, art curator and critic. He worked in a variety of advertising roles, including at Twentieth Century-Fox, before joining Ealing Studios – soon to become famous for such comedies as Kind Hearts and Coronets (1949), The Lavender Hill Mob (1951) and The Ladykillers (1955) – as an advertising director in 1943.
From then until 1955, he recruited and positioned a roster of talented artists, illustrators and designers to develop Ealing’s unique and remarkable poster designs. Woods carefully paired each designer with the subject of a film to create intuitive and empathetic designs. During his tenure at Ealing, Woods employed such acclaimed artists as John Piper, Edward Bawden, James Eckersley, Edward Ardizzone and James Boswell, to name just a few.
But Woods was an impressive designer in his own right, as revealed in these Christmas cards, from the S. John Woods collection held in the BFI National Archive.
Created throughout the 1930s, 40s and 50s, each year Woods would design a unique card, full of movement and character. Featuring typography and colour reminiscent of so many of Ealing’s classic posters, each card is imbued with the studio’s design ethos and spirit. For the eagle-eyed, they also provide details on the artist’s changing personal circumstances across the decades.
Although all the cards are artistic and charming, the 1961 edition is worth special attention. This striking black-and-white card is designed to be read from any angle, an effect that the artist is keen to draw attention to by including the following droll line: “1961, whichever way you look at it”.
Produced with the support of the BFI Screen Heritage Fund, awarding National Lottery funding.