Design dinner finds friends

US business guru Tom Peters expressed surprise at the recent Minerva Dinner that the UK design community – and Jeremy Myerson in particular (DW 2 June) – should think design is short of friends. His inference was that with transatlantic allies such as himself, how come British industry hasn’t got the message?

What a welcome jolt for those clients in the audience, but how small some of the less design astute must have felt when another design stalwart emerged – actor Donald Sinden. In those rich, familiar tones, the celebrated after-dinner speaker outlined his experience of design through specifying type for a book he’s authored for Hodder & Stoughton.

So practiced had he become that the phrases “Benbow Roman”, “12/13” and “25 ems” fairly rolled off his tongue. Was it a case of a good actor fluent in his lines but clueless as to their meaning? Probably not. Mr Sinden is uncle-in-law to Nick Jenkins, one of design’s leading players.