Edinburgh International Festival (1975)
Year: 1975
Format: Mailer (commemorative envelope)
Illustrator: Hans Schleger Associates - Hans Schleger (1898-1976) and Pat Schleger (1928-2015)
Client: Edinburgh International Festival
Details: This envelope is a commemorative cover containing an invitation for the 1975 Edinburgh International Festival. The bird motif was designed by Hans Schleger Associates, who created posters and publicity graphics for the Edinburgh Festival from 1966 to 1978.
Hans Schleger Associates was a studio led by Hans and Pat Schleger. Hans Schleger (1898-1976) was born in Germany into a Jewish family and began his career in Berlin designing publicity material and sets for a film company. He adopted the pseudonym ‘Zero’ in the mid-1920s and went to New York in 1924, bringing his Modernist approach to American advertising. Schleger returned to Berlin in 1929 to work as an Art Director at Crawford’s advertising agency, before emigrating to England when Hitler came to power. He produced work for many British companies and institutions including Shell, London Underground, the General Post Office and British Railways.
Pat Schleger née Maycock (1928-2015) studied Illustration at Chelsea Art School in the late 1940s. In 1949 she joined Hans Schleger's studio as a design assistant. Pat and Hans married in 1956. They formed a husband and wife creative partnership, leading a studio team for over two decades as Hans Schleger Associates. Following Hans' death in 1976, Pat continued the studio. She worked with existing clients as well as gaining new ones including BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Lyric Theatre and the Royal Academy. Pat also worked for 15 years as a senior lecturer at Croydon School of Art and Design and published a book in 2001 - "Zero: Hans Schleger, a Life of Design".