The job of the Doctor Who designer has always been a challenging one - and never more so than in the series’ formative years, when resources were tight and production methods were often archaic. Doctor Who’s first designer was Peter Brachacki, but after completing work on the opening episode, An Unearthly Child (1963), he fell ill and was replaced by Barry Newbery. Although Brachacki’s version of the episode was ultimately designated a pilot and re-recorded, his stunning, high-tech TARDIS control room was reused in the transmitted version, becoming the series’ only recurring set. With its hexagonal central console, its wall roundels and its double doors leading outside, Brachacki’s timeless design established the fundamentals of the TARDIS interior, which would be honoured for decades to come.
In the programme’s first year, design duties largely alternated between Newbery and Raymond Cusick, the former handling the historical settings, the latter tackling the futuristic stories, starting with the Daleks’ first appearance in the second serial. Newbery was mindful of the obligation for historical accuracy that went with the series’ part-educational remit. He undertook extensive research to get the period detail correct, but on occasions found the historical record lacking, which left him free to design what he thought was probable and credible instead. For The Aztecs (1964) he mixed both approaches, copying the mask worn by the corpse of Yetaxa from one in the British Museum while turning to his imagination for a throne, in the absence of any reference material for the Aztec equivalent.
Whereas Newbery’s approach was essentially academic, Cusick’s approach to futuristic settings was speculative and inventive, but tempered by logic. For the Dalek city interior, he designed low, Dalekshaped doorways that forced human-sized characters to stoop, emphasising the alien nature of the architecture. Similarly, panels with large, round controls were meant to suit sucker-arms, not hands. For the Sense-Sphere in The Sensorites (1964), Cusick took inspiration from the work of the Spanish architect Antonio Gaudí and the art nouveau movement. Sweeping curves were used in an attempt to eliminate all straight lines and rightangles as a contrast to sets seen in other stories.