Brett Wickens (born April 15, 1961) is a

Canadian Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...

graphic design Graphic design is a profession, academic discipline and applied art that involves creating visual communications intended to transmit specific messages to social groups, with specific objectives. Graphic design is an interdisciplinary branch of ...

er and musician known for his work with identity design. He is a partner with the Ammunition Design Group, and lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area. Among other musical endeavors, Wickens was a founding member of the bands

Spoons Spoons may refer to: * Spoon, a utensil commonly used with soup * Spoons (card game), the card game of Donkey, but using spoons Film and TV * ''Spoons'' (TV series), a 2005 UK comedy sketch show *Spoons, a minor character from ''The Sopranos' ...

and Ceramic Hello.

Biography

Wickens worked with British graphic designer Peter Saville as a partner in his London studio during the 1980s and 90s, where they developed campaigns for clients such as

Yohji Yamamoto is a Japanese fashion designer based in Tokyo and Paris. Considered a master tailor alongside those such as Madeleine Vionnet, he is known for his avant-garde tailoring featuring Japanese design aesthetics. Yamamoto has won notable awards fo ...

Factory Records Factory Records was a Manchester-based British independent record label founded in 1978 by Tony Wilson and Alan Erasmus. The label featured several important acts on its roster, including Joy Division, New Order (band), New Order, A Certain Ra ...

Peter Gabriel Peter Brian Gabriel (born 13 February 1950) is an English singer, songwriter, musician, and human rights activist. He came to prominence as the original frontman of the rock band Genesis. He left the band in 1975 and launched a solo career wit ...

and the French Ministry of Culture. Wickens was involved in the creation of the artwork for Gabriel's '' So'' (1986), which, according to ''

Creative Review ''Creative Review'' is a bimonthly print magazine and website. The magazine focuses on commercial creativity, covering design, advertising, photography, branding, digital products, film, and gaming. The magazine is published bimonthly in print an ...

'', is "widely regarded as a design classic". In 1990 he became an Associate Partner in

Pentagram A pentagram (sometimes known as a pentalpha, pentangle, or star pentagon) is a regular five-pointed star polygon, formed from the diagonal line segments of a convex (or simple, or non-self-intersecting) regular pentagon. Drawing a circle around ...

's London office, departing three years later. In 1993 Wickens moved to Los Angeles to become VP Creative Director at Frankfurt Balkind Partners. He designed the logotype for HBOs ''

The Sopranos ''The Sopranos'' is an American Crime film#Crime drama, crime drama television series created by David Chase. The series follows Tony Soprano (James Gandolfini), a New Jersey American Mafia, Mafia boss who suffers from panic attacks. He reluct ...

''. In 1999, Wickens became the Global Creative Director of Sapient before joining MetaDesign as VP Creative Director in 2002. He was a founding partner of DreamSurface, a mobile application design company best known for the product TimeTuner. Wickens subsequently became a partner with the Ammunition Design Group. He has been a guest speaker on

NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...

, contributing editor at ''EYE'' magazine, teacher at the

California Institute of the Arts The California Institute of the Arts (CalArts) is a Private university, private art school in Santa Clarita, California. It was incorporated in 1961 as the first degree-granting institution of higher learning in the US created specifically for ...

, and speaker at many symposia, including the RGD Design Thinkers Conference 2008 in Toronto, and the Creative Review Click Conference 2010 in San Francisco. Wickens was awarded in 2016 the Smithsonian

Cooper-Hewitt Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum is a design museum at the Andrew Carnegie Mansion in Manhattan, New York City, along the Upper East Side's Museum Mile. It is one of 19 Smithsonian Institution museums and one of three Smithsonian facili ...

National Design Award. He has said of his approach to design, "I've pretty much based my career on one philosophy. Good design is not about what you put in, it's about what you leave out."

Music career

Wickens was a founding member of the band

, playing keyboards. He appeared on the group's debut single, "After the Institution" (1980), released on then-manager Paul Abrahams' Mannequin Records. Wickens subsequently left Spoons and joined with classically-trained musician Roger Humphreys to form the duo Ceramic Hello. Through Mannequin they released a single, "Climatic Nouveaux" (1980), and an album, ''The Absence of a Canary'' (1981); Abrahams produced the duo. ''

Trouser Press ''Trouser Press'' was a rock and roll magazine started in New York in 1974 as a mimeographed fanzine by editor/publisher Ira Robbins, fellow fan of the Who, Dave Schulps, and Karen Rose under the name "Trans-Oceanic Trouser Press" (a reference ...

'' pondered whether Ceramic Hello would be the "toast of the music press", had they been from London. ''The Absence of a Canary'' has twice been re-released, and has garnered a legacy among electronic music enthusiasts. Elsewhere, Wickens has composed with

William Orbit William Mark Wainwright (born 15 December 1956),"William Orbit." ''Contemporary Musicians''. Vol. 30. Farmington Hills, MI: Gale, 2000. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, 7 May 2017. Available onlinvia ''Encyclopedia.com'' known ...

Jah Wobble John Joseph Wardle (born 11 August 1958), known by the stage name Jah Wobble, is an English bass guitarist and singer. He became known to a wider audience as the original bass player in Public Image Ltd (PiL) in the late 1970s and early 1980s; ...

(

Public Image Ltd Public Image Ltd (abbreviated and stylized as PiL) are an English post-punk band formed by lead vocalist John Lydon (previously, as Johnny Rotten, lead vocalist of the Sex Pistols), guitarist Keith Levene (a founding member of the Clash), bassi ...

Andy McCluskey George Andrew McCluskey (born 24 June 1959) is an English singer, songwriter, musician and record producer. He is best known as the lead singer and bass guitarist of the electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD), which he founded ...

( OMD) and Martha Ladly (

Martha and the Muffins Martha and the Muffins are a Canadian rock band, active from 1977 to the present. Although they only had one major international hit single "Echo Beach" under their original band name, they had a number of hits in their native Canada, and the ...

), among others.

Personal life

Wickens is married to Coralie Langston-Jones and together they have twins, Jasmine and Sophia. They reside in the town of Lucas Valley in

Marin County Marin County ( ) is a county located in the northwestern part of the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 262,231. Its county seat and largest city is San Rafael. Marin County is ac ...

and live in an

Eichler Several people are named Eichler: * August W. Eichler (1839–1887), German botanist * Caroline Eichler (1808/9–1843), German inventor, first woman to be awarded a patent (for her leg prosthesis) * Eunice Eichler (1932–2017), New Zealand Salvat ...

house.

References

External links

Official site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Wickens, Brett Living people People from Burlington, Ontario Musicians from Hamilton, Ontario Canadian new wave musicians Canadian dance musicians 1961 births Creative directors Canadian graphic designers