Monday, October 29, 2007

See anything you recognise?

The year is 1956. It’s Monday morning in the New Cavendish Street offices of Associated London Graphical Artists Ltd. Roger, a promising young illustrator is perched beside his drawing board filling his pipe, when Frank Milward-Taylor, the Managing Director appears in the doorway.

“Roger, glad I caught you old boy, got a little job I’d rather like you to look at.”
“Of course, Sir.”
“It’s another one of those pictorial charts for the medical chaps down at Bristol.”
“Super.”
“Yes, indeed. What they want is a chart illustrating different kinds of stools.”
“Stools, Sir? I’m afraid I don’t quite follow?”
“Shits, Roger, shits.”
“So you’re asking me to draw—“
“Human, Roger, remember they must be human.”
“Human, right.”
“It shouldn’t take too long, the medical boys have provided all the words.”
“I’ll get my brown crayons out then, Sir.”

And here is what Roger produced that morning back in 1956. The fantastically titled Bristol Stool Chart. (I'm mostly a number 6, by the way.)