A Tribute
Frank Ryan 1925 - 2006
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our friend and IDI founding member, Frank Ryan, who passed away on April 21st. However, it gives us great pleasure to offer you some brief insights into the outstanding contribution made by Frank to the development of design and design education in Ireland.
Frank recently received a Professional Excellence Award from Griffith College Dublin in recognition of his continuing legacy to design education. This legacy can be seen today in the work of young designers studying on the programmes he helped to establish, joining the societies he formed and working within a profession for which he set the standards.
Back in the late 1930s when Frank studied Architecture and Commercial Art in Rathmines, design education as we recognise it today, simply did not exist.
Part of the reason why this situation is so dramatically different today - why there are recognised programmes in exhibition design, interior design, interior architecture, product design, visual communications, fashion design and new media - is down to Frank and his support, interest and enthusiasm for the development of young designers.
As Paul Hogan commented prior to Frank’s death:
“… In your career Frank you have gone beyond mere professionalism and I see you as a wise and generous master craftsman, always prepared to share your skills and knowledge with others.”
Frank’s own design education was based on his studies in Rathmines and in the National College of Art where he studied poster design with the Dutch Professor Romein and drawing with Sean Keating RHA.
It was in the National College of Art that Frank first began to play a teaching role, starting in 1965, as a specialist tutor in display and model making. However this involvement with education quickly increased. In 1976 he served as external examiner at the School of Retail Distribution and was a committee member for the formation of a new School of Art and Design (now DIT at Mountjoy Square).
In the same year Frank also began serving on a panel of examiners for the National Council of Education Awards, now the Higher Education and Training Awards Council. Here he worked with Michal Ozmin, someone who has fond memories of travelling with him to Carlow RTC and Limerick College of Art for validation meetings.
Frank MC’s an IDI AGM
Frank enjoyed a warm relationship with NCAD, returning from
1983 - 2004 to act as visiting project leader for an Exhibition Design
Project with students.
David Caron, Visual Communication Department, NCAD remarked on Frank’s
many accomplishments and his record as:
‘the longest serving visiting lecturer in NCAD's department of visual communication; he was also, certainly in latter years, the oldest. His actual age, it seemed, was a closely guarded secret but I remember him telling me during one of his visits to the College that he had just become a great grandfather. This information appeared to be disclosed with a mixture of enormous pride combined with mild amazement as if he himself couldn't quite believe it. Even taking into account the possibility that he got married while still in school, it had to mean that he was a man well beyond normal retiring age. But would you think it? Not a bit. No visiting Lecturer was more lively, more vibrant, or had more energy than Frank. And of course his infectious enthusiasm for exhibition design was, it appeared, effortlessly communicated to his students who always produced remarkably inventive project work under his tutelage.”
Frank has always been a source of inspiration and support
for young designers, not least because of the genuine interest he showed
in their work.
In Griffith College, they also know this to be true:
“Thanks to his experience, he has enabled us to embrace new developments while retaining the students’ primary focus on the development of core skills. For Frank, computing skills are to be fully welcomed and exploited, but the traditional drawing skills must be maintained. According to Frank, “a designer is someone who, when pressed, can always draw a design on the back of an envelope”, a maxim we frequently quote to our students.”
In addition to his roles in education, Frank also played key roles in establishing design as a professional practice. Since the 1950s, Frank worked with undimmed enthusiasm in the promotion of better design through professional societies. He was one of the seven designers who founded the Institute of Creative Advertising (now ICAD). In 1972 he became a founder member of the Society of Designers in Ireland (now IDI) and was elected President of the Society in 1978. Frank has also been significantly involved in the Society of Industrial Artist and Designers, the Office of Public Works and the Crafts Council.
As Martin Gaffney, immediate Past President, IDI, comments:
Frank carried the baton of design representation at national and international level right throughout his impressive career. Design in Ireland has benefited from his life's work. Frank kept the affairs of the IDI in order for many years and always reminded new members of the important milestones in the development of the Institute.
Steve Conlon, Sean McNulty and Frank, Bosnia, 2004
Frank’s own work has ensured the setting of standards in exhibition and interior design in Ireland. As his collaborator Jonathan Mason remarks:
“Frank’s clarity of design has always been outstanding. It is what it does, and it does what it is supposed to. No clutter, no superfluous decoration, everything thought through to the finest detail. As he often says, simplicity is not for the simple. Another of Frank’s Maxims is ‘God is in the details’, and he always expects the same attention to detail in others as he requires of himself.”
Frank’s career in design started in 1942, with an apprenticeship in commercial art and window display, moving on to work as the manager and designer for display contractors, Donfoys Limited. Frank has always had a special love for exhibition design; in 1958 he designed for the Artel Group who specialised in this area and in 1963 he formed his own company, Frank Ryan Studios and Workshops, designing retail Interiors, showrooms, exhibition stands and fashion shows. More than a decade later he was to found Frank Ryan Design Associates designing exhibitions, exhibition stands, commercial and industrial interiors, interpretative / visitor Centres in Ireland and exhibition stands in twenty-two cities across nine countries.
Frank’s contribution to the design field has been acknowledged throughout Ireland. In 1976 he was appointed exterior designer and advisor to Kilkenny Design Workshops. In 1985, Frank was also appointed as a member of the design team for the Heritage Trust Exhibition, OPTIONS, at the Guinness Hop store, a major exhibition presenting the Irish Environment and Resources. This care for the environment and cultural heritage was further manifest in 1991, when he began work as a director and designer of Eigse Limited, specialising in the heritage area. However, his major contribution to culture and history in Ireland also rests on his work with the Heritage Planning and Design Services, which he founded in 1996, in partnership with Jonathan Mason and which is responsible for the design of twenty-six interpretative and visitor centres in Ireland.
Arthur Duff, Frank Ryan and Libby Carton
Frank was revered not just nationally, but internationally,
as the following story illustrates -
Jonathan Mason recalls first meeting Frank in 1990 when he was involved
in setting up a campus company in Trinity, called Éigse.
“In putting a team together, research skills in the environmental sciences, history, archaeology etc., were no problem, but design and communications skills were another matter. Specialist advice was needed. The father of thematic exhibition design, and ‘Grand Old Man’ of British museum designers was James Gardner, or ‘G’ as he liked to be known. He had more or less invented modern thematic exhibition design with his designs for the great Festival of Britain exhibitions London in 1951. The great man was duly contacted and asked if he could recommend anyone in Ireland. He immediately replied, “Oh, the only man to work with in Ireland is Frank Ryan … and of course he was right.”
Frank and Jonathan later collaborated on the design team
for the Irish Pavilion at Expo ’92 in Seville. For these signal
achievements and for many more, Frank has been honoured previously, with
the election to several fellowships:
In recognition of his work, Franks was elected a Fellow of the Institute
of British Decorators and Interior Designers, a Fellow of the Society
of Industrial Artist and Designers (now CSD) and most recently in 2005,
awarded the Fellowship of The Institute of Designers in Ireland.
Frank receiving IDI Fellowship
Michal Ozmin perhaps best expresses the recognition he enjoyed from his professional colleagues and friends when he says:
“We could talk forever about working together with Frank, his extraordinary input to Irish cultural life, his achievements as a designer and as an educator, the respect he holds among fellow-professionals, educators and ex-students and the love which we, his friends hold for him in our hearts.”
In honour of Frank’s contribution to design education, his continuous support to the IDI and his friendship to all who knew him, the IDI are delighted to announce the Frank Ryan Bursary, details of which will be revealed soon.
A celebration of Frank's life will be held on Saturday 27th May in the Church of the Three Patrons, Rathgar at 2 p.m. We hope you will be able to attend to help us celebrate the life of a valuable contributor to Irish design and a great friend.
Frank at WHW Plaque reveal