1914 London
1996 London

The commercial artist and poster artist Abram Games studied briefly at the St Martins School of Art in London but must be viewed as self-taught. From 1932 until 1936 Abram Games worked as a "studio boy" for the London commercial design firm Askew-Young. In 1935 Abram Games entered a poster in a competition sponsored by the London City Council, which he unexpectedly won. From 1936 Abram Games freelanced as a graphic artist. During the second world war, Abram Games was employed by the British War Office as their official poster artist and he designed at least a hundred propaganda posters for the war effort. While working on those posters, Abram Games developed his highly economical personal style as a graphic artist: he aimed at attaining a maximum of meaning with a minimum of means. Abram Games's best known wartime posters are those he designed for the ATS to recruit British women for war work on the home front. After 1945 Abram Games resumed his career as a freelance commercial artist, designing posters, advertisements, and logs for the BBC, British Airways, "The Financial Times", Guiness, London Transport, Shell, the United Nations, and the Israeli airline El Al. Abram Games also designed covers for Penguin Books. In 1951 Abram Games created the Festival of Britain emblem. Abram Games was one of the last designers of hand-crafted lithograph posters before they were replaced by the offset process.