BOOK REVIEW / Audio-visual display in the 1970's

An audio-visual display from the pre-video era - each head contained a specially built slide projector pulsed to match the commentary - devised for a 1970s exhibition and included in James Gardner: The Artful Designer. This fat, quirkily written, copiously illustrated memoir from one of British design's most enduring figures gives full weight to the big, prestigious commissions - work on the Festival of Britain, the interior of the QE2 ('the biggest toy in the world') - but delights equally in trifles - tiaras, bicycle pumps - and pays due tribute to the long- suffering secretaries Gardner persisted in calling 'Mehitabel'. ( pounds 19.99 from Lavis Marketing, 73 Lime Walk, Oxford OX3 7AD)

(Photograph omitted)