Tom Eckersley

Tom Eckersley began his artistic training back in 1930 where he enrolled at Salford Art School, where his abilities were soon recognized and he received the Heyward Medal for Best Student. In 1934 he moved to London with the express purpose of becoming a freelance poster designer. Accompanied by Eric Lombers, from 1914 - 1978, they worked together where their poster were both aesthetic and functional, thereby perfectly fulfilling advertisers' critera. Eckersley-Lombers always supplied full size artwork with hand drawn lettering for their poster designs. Eckersley was not only involved in graphic design but teaching it also. He and Lomber workered as visiting lecturers in poster design at Westminister School of Art.

The start of World War II in 1929 effectively marked the end of Eckersley's partnership with Lombers, as they joined different military services and there was a decline in demand for commercial advertising. This led Eckersley to create posters for the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), aimed at workers in factories and industrial settings that often support the military in some way. Having originally joining the Royal Air Force and being charged with cartographic work Eckersley was tranferred to the Public Section of the Air Ministry, this allowed him to work from home and take commercial commissions again.

In 1954, Eckersley joined the London College of Printing. Here he created the first undergraduate courses in graphic design in Britain. He also continued his commissioned work, by adding The United Nations Children's Fund, the World Wide Fund of Nature, the National Business Calendar Design Awards, and Cooks to his list of clients.

Eckersley was one of the foremost poster designers and graphic communicators of the last century, who combined practice with education. His desgins have one common factor: they bring together text and pictures to relate complex messages in a direct way.