My wife, Merryl Cook, who has died aged 85, was a painter and designer who created the distinctive logo still in use by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU). Her paintings were usually representational, but love of colour often took over to create a striking vibrancy.
She was born in Surbiton, Surrey, to David Charles, a studio photographer and author, and his wife, Elsie (nee Parkinson), a tailor from a family of tailors, who taught Merryl and her older sister, Joan, to make their own clothes and home furnishings.
Merryl started her career as a secretary in Epsom, but the urge to paint took her to the Surbiton Arts Group, where she met the Polish graphic designer Artur Horowicz. Another influence was the painter Kathleen “Jim” Hudson. They encouraged her to seek design work in London, where in 1957 she was employed as a visualiser with TB Browne, an advertising agency, and, three years later, as a senior designer for Fleetway Publications, creating posters and displays for the Design Centre, Olympia and the Royal Festival Hall.
We met at a party in Oxford through a mutual friend; Merryl had been told there were three interesting men to view. Later she said she always wondered what the others might have been like. We married in 1962 and moved to Leicester, where I was a lecturer in zoology at the university and Merryl lectured in graphic design at the art college and at Manchester University’s education school. Merryl accompanied me on a year’s exchange to New England and Trinidad, where she worked on biological illustrations. In 1966 we moved to Manchester, where our daughter, Alison, was born.
After some commercial work, Merryl taught design at Manchester College of Art and Design, and when it became part of Manchester Polytechnic in 1970 she moved to its Advanced Studies Institute as a lecturer. A travelling fellowship in 1972 enabled her to visit Istanbul to study the impact on printing of Turkey’s move from Arabic to Latin script in 1927. That began a lasting love of the country and its people.
By 1984 Merryl was head of publicity design for the polytechnic, responsible for its corporate identity, including the logo retained by the successor MMU.
She loved to cook and began to enter competitions, winning first prize in the Observer/Mouton Cadet cookery competition in 1985, and the BBC/Taste Magazine’s amateur cook award the following year.
After retirement she enrolled for a fine art degree at MMU, the oldest undergraduate in Doc Martens. This included study at the Accademia di Belle Arti, Venice, where she began work on the subject of masks and personality that culminated in her degree show in 1997. She was always eager for new experiences and projects.
Merryl is survived by Alison, two grandchildren and me.
