GEORGE DAULBY was in on the ground floor of a graphic design revolution which took place in Britain in the postwar period. He was one of four partners — with Derek Birdsall, George Mayhew and Peter Wildbur — in the Bloomsbury- based design practice BDMW (its name incorporating their initials), founded in the late 1950s.

It was one of a small group of firms (Fletcher Forbes Gill was another) which thoroughly absorbed American and European graphic styles, and pioneered modern typography in this country, through the introduction of such sans serif types as Helvetica into graphic design from the mid-1950s onwards. It was an era which completed the transition from the old-style commercial art to the establishment of the profession of graphic design.

In television from the 1960s onwards, Daulby brought his skills as a typographer to current affairs programmes, notably the BBC’s coverage of elections. As such, working closely with computer designers to establish a formal and rational approach to onscreen graphics, he helped to revolutionise information design on television.

George Daulby was born in Richmond, Surrey, in 1928 and educated at Chiswick County School, from where he went to Twickenham Art School, where he studied interior design. After army service between 1946 and 1948 he had a short period signwriting before going in 1948 to St Martins School of Art.

From 1950 he was at the Central School of Arts and Crafts, thereafter working in a number of advertising agencies and freelancing before returning in 1953 to Central to study typography, which he was to make his speciality. Over the next few years he taught part-time at Central, the London College of Printing and at the Royal College of Art. It was while at Central that, in 1958, he, Mayhew and Wildbur, also both teachers, and Birdsall, a student, were offered a top floor at 3 Bloomsbury Place, just opposite Central, to set up their own design company, BDMW. At that time the Swiss School was pre-eminent, with its emphasis on graphic discipline, but BDMW sought to marry this with the verve of American graphic design, to create a style that was to become characteristic.

In a BDMW output that from the early 1960s included corporate logos, commercial stationery and posters, Daulby’s contribution ranged from literature for the modern furniture makers Kroll International to posters for Sadler’s Wells, book jackets and record sleeves. BDMW formed one of the first “outside” links developed by the BBC when it joined forces with the corporation on BBC2’s Choice programme, which reviewed the findings of the consumer magazine Which?

After further freelance work for the corporation in the mid-1970s Daulby joined the staff of the BBC, and for the next dozen years was a valued member of its graphic department. He provided and developed the graphics for a succession of general election coverages, for Tonight, Newsnight, Money Programme and for a host of other current affairs programmes, and was an inspiration and source of guidance to younger members of the in-house graphics team.

He was compelled to retire early from the BBC through ill-health in 1983. But he made a remarkable recovery from cancer, and was able to resume freelance work for the corporation as well as part-time teaching at the London College of Printing.

George Daulby was excellent company, a genial or, as he chose, amusingly acerbic, presence at any dinner party. A fine graphics teacher and a kindly man, he was always ready to share his immense fund of knowledge of the field with anyone round the table who might show interest.

George Daulby is survived by his wife, Lesley, and by two sons and two daughters.

George Daulby, graphic designer, was born on April 6, 1928. He died on August 31, 2005, aged 77.