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Ruth Gill

tumblr_inline_mtsiwmbJak1r2u8ivRuth Gill, the daughter of a clergyman, produced ‘elegant’ advertising (particularly for packaging). She trained in advertising as well as design, and became art director at Colman, Prentice & Varley, Ltd. in 1954. She studied sculpture and design at the Chelsea School of Art, at a period when Graham Sutherland, Henry Moore and Milner Gray were teaching there. She joined a small agency, John Tait and Partners in 1940, to work with Hans Schleger, and Mary Gowing, who were handling the ATS recruiting campaigns. Gill became involved in the recruiting-advertising for the ATS in 1940 and 1941, persuading women to take part in a ‘life and death affair’, involving night-time visits to compositors and foundaries, ‘all-night briefings at the Ministry of Information’, and altering advertising according to response. She became art director once the ATS advertising was complete.

Information collated from: Gowing, M., ‘The Creative Mind in Advertising: Ruth Gill’, Art and Industry, Vol. 63, No. 375, September 1957, pp.84-89.

Featured Image: Rennart

By Second World War Posters

Mass Communications Academic, @MMUBS. British Home Front Propaganda posters as researched for a PhD completed 2004. In 1997, unwittingly wrote the first history of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster, which she now follows with interest.

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