Czech it out

Twitter has bought me mostly nothing but nice things. Daily bits of gossip, both personal and professional. Links to the weird, beautiful, popular and obscure. A way of finding new people who share links with my worlds, personal and professional.

I was just sent a link to a lovely online resource about Vojtěch Kubašta, a Czech artist who was an illustrator and maker of wonderful paper pop up things. I might have found the website eventually. But how much nicer to have someone else find it and think: ‘Hmm, Shelf Appeal might like this.’ Then that someone takes the time to send it through. Virtual propinquity.

I do love an online resource of pretty paper things. One click after another of cooing and gasps of delight. This particular collection was bought together by the Bienes Museum of the Modern Book, which seems to me a place I might like to just go and live in.

The Kubašta archive covers adverts, pop-up books, posters, calendars, postcards. It is a pretty spectacular body of work. I now want to find a bit of Kubašta for myself. Perhaps a little book. Perhaps a little pop up book. For the online simply wets my appetite for a bit of the offline – to put on the shelf.

Swing low

A new de luxe garden Hammock this.  Fresh and lovely and sold by Fortnum & Mason in 1936. All pieces fully sprung, with pullman armrests between each cushion. The whole covered in ‘a new material in a beautiful and exclusive modern design.’  Slashes of red and camel zing across the surface, with what looks like a nice red fringing on the top and bottom of the hammock.

This postcard is a corker. The illustration (who needs photos?) making the most of the fabric repeat.  It is probably by W Hendy who designed the Fortnum things that Edward Bawden didn’t in the 1930s. There is not too much sense of the great untamed outdoors here, a bit of grass but nicely tamed and civilised. Thank goodness.

I wonder if that modern design of fabric is by Marion Dorn? She is better known for her strictly modernist rugs and weaves (including some masterly moquettes for London Underground) but her printed textile designs certainly weren’t far behind all that. Strong of repeat and bold in colour they were, which is what makes me wonder about this one.

Dorn was working on and off for Fortnum’s (wasn’t everybody?) both directly as Marion Dorn Designs Limited and through manufacturers like Warners and Donald Brothers fabrics. Her partner (it was such a scandal, dear) Edward McKnight Kauffer was doing some graphic things for them too. So it all makes sense, to me anyway.

I feel with these bits of furniture and a little seaside deco bide-a-wee, I might actually enjoy a bit of (my least favourite season) summer.

Hedgerow Harvest

I have always thought the countryside is best seen from a car or train window. But I like images of the countryside and country pursuits. In July 1945 the Ministry of Food issued this sweetie of a leaflet: Hedgerow Harvest. It was part of their massive campaign to get the country doing more making and mending and thus more saving of essential resources for the war effort.

The Ministry leaflets were very nice things. Illustrations and hints and recipes and patterns and such like. Usually they were aimed at women at home looking after the home – as most were in those days.

The copy gives away the probable urban origins of its intended reader:

‘There is a wealth of wild foods in our hedgerows and fields for those who are within reach of the countryside. None of this harvest should be wasted, but be exceedingly careful how you gather it in. There must be no broken hedges, no gates left open for cattle to stray through, no trampling of growing crops.’

As well as these cautionary words, the illustration of a family out berrying reinforces the cityness of it all. The chap rolls up his crisp sleeves and pulls branches down with his walking stick. The woman’s stylish dress and Vogue-meets-Gainsborough sun hat look just so but wouldn’t have done much to keep scratches at bay. Yet their baskets are full. The puppy has evidently had enough though and has sat down to watch the illustrator.

The leaflet gives instructions for jams and jellies, pickles, chutney and ketchup. Sloe and marrow jam might be an acquired taste but mushroom ketchup sounds intriguing. Unfortunately it seems to have involved days watching salted mushrooms stew in a bowl.

So I go back to admiring the cover instead and thinking how great that title typeface is, curling off like peas on a growing frame.

Looking out to sea

Don’t get me started on modern magazine cover design. Instead let’s hark back to the days of 1937 old, when, more often than not, magazine covers had an image on them, a title on them, and not much more.

This is one of my favourite magazine covers and one of my favourite Vogue covers. It’s also one of my favourite fashion illustrations. It all adds up to be a little bit of graphic heaven from where I sit.

This is a US Vogue. I don’t really collect them, preferring British editions. But it’s a rare cover bought in the earlier days of eBay when old Vogues were still almost affordable. And it is in beautiful beautiful condition. In the first half of the 20th century the same covers often graced both US and British Vogue, and probably French Vogue too. I always wanted to research this and see if it was always or ever in the same month. Thinking about the commissions, the artists, the editors and how it was all negotiated.

However it was negotiated, those Vogues were beauties. The cover title often integral to the illustration. And hardly any trite copy to mar the impact of the cover image. This illustration is by Eduardo Garcia Benito, an old friend to Vogue covers. His style was mutable as perhaps a proper commercial artist’s should be. But more often than not his paintbrush was loose and he used just enough strokes, and no more.

And this July 1937 cover is some of the best of that. I love the back of the model (with just a flash of red lipstick) and the dog, looking out to sea. The sense of space, peace, privacy and inimitable, effortless chic.

Hey Hay

I first came across the brand HAY in Copenhagen where they have a shop and a lot of presence across the design-centric retailing in that city. Not so surprising as they are Danish. Their things are much harder to find in the UK. Bits pop up here and there. But not so much.

More than in their own shop, I remember their products in the Illum store in Copenhagen. There was graphic bedding, boxes and lots of beguiling bits to admire.

The thing that really makes HAY things are the colours. Just left of centre, just off-pastel, just short of fluro and all most unusual. Their stacks of boxes in just-matching colours – going down in size like squared-off Matryoshka dolls – are stationery art. Happily they’ve made it to London and are for sale in the precious stationery enclave of Present & Correct. And can be seen taunting passers-by in their window.

Visiting the P&C shop I dearly wanted that pile of pretty boxes for my very own. But I really have no actual need for a pile of boxes. And I really can’t squeeze them on the shelf. So I compromised and bought the two sharp looking card wallets pictured here. One in an almost-fluro orange, one in a nice check grid. Both with a velco fastening. Yum.