Robert McCrum

The Story of English is the extraordinary tale of the origins and development of the English language. Two thousand years ago, English was confined to a handful of savage tribes on the shores of north-west Europe; today, in one form or another, it is spoken by a billion people around the world. More widely scattered, written and spoken than any...

John McConnell's list of collaborators includes many household names—Boots, Faber & Faber, Halfords, Clarks, John Lewis. The man behind the Biba logo (for which he won the D&AD Silver in 1969), the logo of the National Grid, and the covers of a Penguin student textbook series from the early '70s has exerted a quiet influence over British design since the...