The Minute Room - Regent Palace Hotel (c.1959)

Year: c.1959

Format: Matchbook

Illustrator: Negus/Sharland - Richard Negus (1927-2011) and Philip Sharland (1923-1986)

Client: Regent Palace Hotel

---

Details: This matchbook promotes The Minute Room, a restaurant at the Regent Palace Hotel in London.

The menu version of the image dates from 1959 and includes a signature at the bottom of the clock design - the initials ‘N/S,’ which stand for Negus/Sharland. Richard Negus (1927-2011) and Philip Sharland (1923-1986) worked together for twenty years.

Negus and Sharland met while studying at the Camberwell School of Arts. One of their first commissions was designing exhibitions for the 1951 Festival of Britain. They went on to produce work for clients including BOAC, the GPO, and the Council of Industrial Design, before moving into corporate identity design.

The partnership continued until 1971. Sharland continued working as a designer and illustrator, while Negus formed the design partnership Negus & Negus with Pamela Negus, whom he had also met at Camberwell and later married. Together they created identities for a number of major clients, including British Airways, designing their distinctive ‘Negus’ livery.