This or that

Barbara Jones is one of my favourite illustrators and this book has a bit of all her best subject matter – objects, animals, furniture and quirky things. But I got this for its design historical credentials first and illustrations second. It was published for the Scottish Committee of the Council of Industrial Design in 1947, in much the same format as those lovely contemporaneous Puffin Picture books.

1947 was the same year the SCOID committee organised the exhibition Enterprise Scotland at the Royal Scottish Museum. A sort of northern version of the Britain Can Make It exhibition held in the V&A the previous year. This book must have been part of the same design bandwagon that was crossing the nation in the name of good taste.

This or That is aimed, ostensibly, at teaching children about good design. You do wonder a bit at the fairly sophisticated level of text and theory in these mid-century children’s books. Form and function rhetoric wrapped up in a story about David and Shelia, ribbons around waste bins and nature versus the city. The latter point is made with two double page illustrated spreads of the bucolic countryside compared to a rat and bulldog infested city. There is even an ‘interactive’ page where you (the reader) pick items for a room and compare your taste to David and Shelia’s.

This or That a bit of a mess, editorially speaking. And feels like it was rushed off the press by a committee who probably needed to produce something. But visually speaking, Barbara Jones pulls it off. One supposes David (in his kilt) and Shelia are the two young’uns on the cover. Arguing (as children do) the aesthetic value of plywood versus mock-regency chairs.

London, my London

The signature ‘Lee-Elliott 38’ nestles at the bottom of Nelson’s Column on this cover. Theyre Lee-Elliott, a bit of a picture himself, was a graphic artist, logo and poster designer extraordinaire. His work is covered off beautifully over at QuadRoyal where it is well worth scrolling down to the comments, too.

This booklet calls to me on another level than its simple, beautiful cover with its logo-ish birds flying across. I love London booklets, imagery, what have you. I also like a nice production such as this, printed by the Curwen Press at the height of their graphic commissioning and production power in 1939. Anyone who was anyone in commercial illustration circles put in an invoice to Curwen in that decade.

The booklet has extended cover flaps that open to reveal a map (surely by MacDonald Gill?) of inner London to the front, and greater London to the back. It was produced for (take a breath) ‘The Travel and Industrial Development Association of Great Britain and Ireland.’ They appear on the back flap (with another sweet map of 29 Cockspur Street, their home) as ‘The Information Bureau for Great Britain and Ireland.’ Not much shorter, that. The Bureau seem to have been all about getting tourists to come and visit.

The booklet is illustrated with photographs rather than the graphics more usual to Curwen productions. And very nice they are too, with Brandt, Felton and Hoppé in amongst. It is written by one H. B. Brenan who worked at the Ministry of Information. So, what with the cover, the maps, the photos..someone with some taste commissioned this one.

All in all it is a quality bit of paperness this. Surviving in nice condition, too (complete with a compliment slip!) until it peeped out of a 50p box at me last year and said take me home.

Quick and dirty

Shelf Appeal has been all about the paper recently. So when I found this small tin whilst putting away Christmas decorations, I thought I would get a bit dimensional.

I used to collect packaging. But watching my brothers house slowly turn itself into the second coming of Robert Opie sort of put me off. But I couldn’t quite seem to part with this little number. That picture on the lid is nothing if not a fashion illustration, complete with berets and a plaid skirt. Very similar to the little vignettes dotted across the pages of Vogue, or the tasty illustrative Jaeger advertising of the 1930s. Which probably explains why it is a lone (ish) packaging survivor on my shelf.

I found the thing in a box of tat at some Manchester flea market, I think. Years later, studying for an MPhil and getting very good use out of a staff pass for the National Art Library in the V&A (the best thing by far about that studying) I found a reference to it in a packaging magazine of 1938. I wasn’t looking for it but that is when you turn up things.

I really miss those V&A stacks. As far as the greedy design historian eye could see there were journals and books on designy things. I am pretty sure I got through every British Vogue up to about 1950. Art & Industry. Display. Architectural Review. Commercial Art. Graphis annuals galore. And only some little part of all that browsing was relevant to what I was actually supposed to be researching.

It seems they made a bigger Quickies tin, too. All the better for displaying on a shelf. All the better for seeing the nice illustration and sweet rope-like typeface used for the name. Not that I’d want two Quickie tins, you understand..

Masculine whim

The Austin Reed man was a bit spoilt with nice graphics and advertising in the mid-twentieth century. Austin Reed is a brand that struggles a little with its place in the market these days. But those days, well. They used poster designer of choice Tom Purvis, illustrator of choice Fougasse, and a lot of other commercial artists whose illustrations without provenance just tease me to try and find out more.

This is a Christmas booklet from the late 1940s. They are my mostest favourite things these shop booklets. Presumably mailed out to ladies and gentlemen so that they would know what to buy their particular gentlemen. Reassured that at Austin Reed: ‘masculine whims and vanities are served at all seasons and in all circumstances.’

It is a grand cover design though. A little bit yet not quite Fougasse. Inside the booklet there are illustrations of slippers, socks, dressing gowns, pyjamas – and even a pipe – as worn on the cover. Everything except the stripy chair is for sale, for Christmas.

I posted about some socks from this booklet before. And about another Austin Reed booklet too. I do like to get my monies-worth from these bits of paper. I can’t promise this will be the last time, either. The ‘Whims and Fancies’ page from this one deserves a post all to itself.

I’ll finish this post and the year with a pair of slippers. Such a lovely, simple illustration of a very nice pair of slippers.

The sweetest thing

It’s the little things. I bought this tiny (8cm long) bit of nonsense for 50p. OK, you might say I was done. I probably was. But it’s a nice illustration and makes me happy.

Of course I Googled it. Found out it is a sugar wrapper. Opened up a scary world of sugar wrapper collectors to me. I can see the attraction but am glad I don’t feel the need to go there. Hundreds of the things, scanned and catalogued here. Some rather lovely packets. A terrible website – usability-wise.

I like that it’s Joan of Arc in a chainmail top. Can’t make out the name of the illustrator. It’s made by a Dutch sugar company called Oordt & Co of Rotterdam.

The Dutch strapline seems to translate as ‘She’s writing with Reynolds.’ Reynolds, the wiki-p tells me, is a company founded in the USA by Milton Reynolds. He ripped off Biro pens and manufactured them to great success as the Reynolds Rocket in 1945. Go him.