Obituary: Benedict Richards

London College of Communication (LCC) is incredibly sorry to hear about the death of Benedict Richards, who taught at UAL for over 25 years and encouraged so many emerging designers to take the next steps in their own creative journeys.

Working across our suite of Design for Visual Communication courses, Benedict emphasised the importance of collaboration and attention to detail, supporting students to organise information, generate concepts and make their ideas visual - providing them with the guidance they needed to begin 'thinking with type'.

As a practitioner, Benedict was an experienced graphic designer who specialised in creative communication and information typography across many different types of media. The majority of his projects were developed for the arts, public and voluntary sectors, and ranged from government forms and limited edition art books to a design system for multilingual tourist publications.

Benedict's work with Graphicacy, a small studio dedicated to 'making things clear and precise for other people', included his development of a Typographical Anatomy Diagram: a useful guide to alignments, distance, serifs, spaces, strokes and terminals that aimed to share key insights around typography and letterforms to students, teachers and professionals alike.

"Cherish, embrace and explore every detail by trying everything and dismissing nothing"

Benedict is remembered by Ian Carr, Course Leader for our Postgraduate Certificate, Postgraduate Diploma and MA in Design for Visual Communications courses.

"Celebrating the happenings, accomplishments and the life of an individual is something we should never forget. This a bow to the individual Benedict Richards, who recently passed away.

"Benedict's teaching experience spanned 25 years at UAL; however, his work and teachings will last longer. Over the last 8 years, he lectured on the PgDip and PgCert Design for Visual Communication courses at LCC, where he was an integral part of the DVC team and community, and a friend with a fond sense of absurdity and laughter.

"As a graphic design and typography specialist lecturer, Ben dedicated his time to educating the next generation. His sense of humour, engagement and fun brought life and personality to the course. His eye for detail and passion for the subject was at the core of the student experience, and this conveyed Ben’s willingness to share, give and help. This enthusiasm was fundamental to both his person and the community that he was a part of.

"His enthusiasm and commitment for the craft was infectious. Ben was big believer that the most important thing you can instil is to cherish, embrace and explore the detail by trying everything and dismissing nothing. He would always prefer to look at a nicely kerned type pairing than a painting; and believed that toiling away, quietly refining skills and passing this knowledge on was extremely honourable."

Benedict Richards: 31 July 1969 – 19 July 2022

If you'd like to contribute your own memories of Benedict and words of condolence, you're welcome to share your thoughts with the Design for Visual Communication community via Instagram.