Dr Paul Rennie

Biography

Paul Rennie is acknowledged as a leading authority on the historical development of graphic design in Britain. Paul combines his academic work with collecting vintage posters and curating the Rennies Seaside Modern Gallery with his wife, Karen.


My interest is communication design begins with the consideration of posters, made in the 19C onwards, as the first images created to be seen from a distance, and whilst moving. As such, they form the basis of an present-day image culture that is dynamic and interactive and that aligns with the acceleration effects of the modern metropolis…,

My interest has developed through the consideration of three characteristics of the poster
Scale + color (printing and display)
Visual Integration (image + text)
Speed + Movement (machine-ensemble + cognition)

The excitement of gateway, or threshold, moments provide for a well-established engagement with experience (feeling) through architecture in relation to space, structure and specification. I’m interested in considering these effects from a GCD perspective and in relation to scale, position, and color…and also movement (dynamic speed). A vertigo moment of spatial discombobulation…and in relation to cognitive formation and social formation.

Architecture without buildings (without walls)
In terms of GCD, this is a space where information and systems meets up with experience and environment and with time and movement, narrative and voice, strategy and identity too…Each gives shape to our interactions (as described by Cedric Price in his Interaction Centre and Fun-Palace etc); beyond the merely transactional. How can we combine scale, and associated spectacular effects, whilst remaining optimistic, progressive and fun. All the while aligning constructively with our cognitive processes and formation; becoming what we see (McLuhan etc)
I’m intrigued by the potential of digital to achieve scale through diversity rather than by traditional monument building. GCD conceptualised as a form of architecture without walls or buildings…agile, economic and sustainable.

In this context I view shops, night-clubs, restaurants, and schools, for example, as expressions of empathetic civic improvement and virtue.
I’m looking for progressive and humane systems, at scale. I note that JCD and Clearchannel, global leaders in outdoor display and street furniture, are promoting the potential of panoptic staging to enhance the contemporary urban experience (and as opposed to panopticon surveillance). This was recently given expression in the Paris 2024 Olympic opening parade and ceremony etc…

I recommend...
Solnit R (2003) River of Shadows London Penguin describes some of the effects in relation to California and at a continental scale.

My own work…
PhD (2005) Safety Posters in WW2
2007 Festival of Britain Design
2010 Modern British Posters
2015 GPO Posters Design
2015 Safety First RoSPA Posters
2021 Tom Eckersley
2025 Folkestone - Place Posters People
2025 Liberty - Style + Identity

Blogging at
BAGDContext
New Pamphleteer
Paul’s Poster Project

Insta
#doctorcontext

Working with
Imperial Healthcare (Art + Recovery)
The Margate School (New ways of teaching + learning in art + design