during the 1980’s bill joined the scottish design centre on st vincent street glasgow and began to experiment with colour and bold geometric shape in chime with the new graphic design style.

These were more affluent times and commissions for larger pieces and the opportunity to create unique designs started to return for the first time since the early phase of Bill’s career in the 1960s.

The Art Nouveau style of Glasgow’s iconic architect and designer Charles Rennie Mackintosh returned to fashion in the 1980s and Bill created sets inspired by the great architect, on whose original chairs he and my mum had sat together to work side by side in the library of the Glasgow School of Art.

This work was sold through Kelvingrove Museums and Galleries but by then end of the decade, Thatcherite market principles forced more commercially minded decision buyers to seek cheaper imported products for retail and away from commissioning work by Scottish trained craftspeople.