Our friend Irene Sinclair, who has died aged 85, was a packaging designer with a long and glittering career in advertising, during which she travelled all over the world.
The only child of Stanley Sinclair, a mining engineer, and his wife, Elsie, she was brought up in Bolsover, Derbyshire, where she went to local schools. After attending Chesterfield College of Art, she won a place at the Royal College of Art and graduated in graphic design in 1953. This was part of a new range of postwar courses intended to make the RCA more relevant to the needs of industry. The pioneering designer and academic Richard Guyatt was the first professor determined to relaunch the institution as a place that prepared postgraduate students for lives in the specialised design professions.
After completing her course, Irene took various jobs in publishing, including one on the Picture Post. She was then offered a position at the J Walter Thompson advertising agency. She described herself in its in-house magazine, Round the Square, as a “lapsed Girl Guide” and her hobbies as “being single and water skiing”.
By 1960 Irene was making her mark in British packaging design and had set up a department for the agency’s branch in Milan. She also designed packaging for Frankfurt, Vienna, Paris, Brussels, Amsterdam and Johannesburg, ultimately becoming an associate director for JWT in 1967 while heading the packaging department.
Her work ranged across many household brand names, including Dairylea, Lux, Sunsilk, Huntley & Palmer and Yardley, and she was a key member of the team that created and launched the Mr Kipling brand. Irene was particularly interested in typography and liked to use it to dramatic effect in eye-catching packaging.
In the 1970s, when the agency underwent changes, Irene decided to go freelance and moved back to Derbyshire, taking many of her clients with her. Her partner, Sue Legge, gave up her nursing career to become Irene’s assistant.
On retiring in the 90s Irene painted watercolour landscapes for pleasure and occasionally profit. In 2000 she exhibited at the Bakewell arts festival, where some of her works were purchased by the Duke of Devonshire. She had a generous nature and was always advising younger people on careers in the arts.
Irene had a vast number of friends, both in her home village of Crich and abroad, many of whom travelled to be with her in her last few months.
Sue died in January. Irene is survived by her many cousins.
