Does anyone know who illustrated these covers? They're signed "Blake" but interweb research has drawn a big fat nothing, or rather, nothing but a slightly stoat William and the fact that he did a bit of illustration too just doesn't help, even though he was well dead by the time Esso commissioned these.
While I was off work last week my parents were over from the mainland so we all went to the Ulster Folk Museum for a day. It's a great place, I've mentioned before, and everyone enjoyed it. Just as we were polishing off our picnic lunch my oldest boy asked if he could go and play in the coal yard. Despite images of a returning blackened child, we let him go.
A few minutes later I thought I'd better check to make sure he hadn't fallen fowl of any of the numerous hazards; I know, I thought, I'll sneak through the coal yard office and scare the b'jesus out of him (as the locals say). But, creeping in, I was greeted by a warming sight: there he was, at the desk, leafing through this lovely vintage atlas. That's me' boy.
Apparently, he was deciding where we were going to go on holiday. Somewhere off the coast of the Antarctic it is then.
(Took the opportunity to extend my UFM Flickr set too.)
Here's another one from Nick's box.
Map aside, it's interesting (well, for about 2 minutes) that the Caltex brand looked remarkably like another but a little digging reveals that it still does because they're both offspring of the same hermaphrodite parent Chevron. It's all explained here.
Thanks go to the man with the box.
Here's another specimen from Nick's bumper box of maps etc (one day, he might get it back).
Nowhere near as glamorous as the previous example it's printed on really awful paper. Dated 1943, the general poor quality of the material and print make this a strangely interesting piece of work.
Found this recently (on ebay for a couple of quid) and thought it might reveal an interesting map.
It didn't...well not that interesting.
Still, it doesn't matter because it has other things going for it to compensate. Specifically, and discovered to my great (if sad) delight: the sloping 'tab' system designed to help you identify which quarter of North America you want to look at. It's dead simple of course; the one edge is cut at a slight angle so when it's folded, map-stylee, it creates zip-zagging coloured strips that correspond to the colours in that diagram.
Nicklas has kindly lent me his bumper box of maps etc. There's lots of interesting things inside.
A major highlight being this 1965 map of New York and specifically the 1964/65 World's Fair. Published by Rand McNally & Company and sponsored by Texaco.
Jonathan Turner emailed me a while back with a link to his superb Flickr collections. Specifically, to images of this Wim Crouwel/Total Design designed atlas. He's got loads of great stuff.
His latest addition, "The Practical Idealists", looks brilliant too, so I've ordered a copy on Abe.
If you've got A Smile in the Mind you'll know these stamps, designed by Howard Brown in 1991. Each shows Ham Street as seen on an Ordnance Survey map of a particular eras. The price of the stamp is incorporated into the map, appropriating the style of the time. Smile everyone!
No FTF again I'm afraid. That last one was so damn good, a hard act to follow, so I'm not going to try until next week.
Instead, feast your eyes upon a set of high altitude enroute charts that Graham's sent me. Superb aren't they? I can now navigate my aircraft to Dakar safely or pop over to Caracas (where all the good looking girls live! Remember Gregory's Girl? No? Then that's just a very bad joke. Actually, even if you do remember, it's still a very bad joke). Ehum...well anyway, maps...
They're quite remarkable really; if a little too busy at times for nervous flyers (thankfully, I'm not one of them). Closer scrutiny reveals details to raise further concern, like the abundance of fuel dumping areas and rather casual reference to collision avoidance.
And I'm becoming increasingly worried that there's someone flying over Africa right now wondering where the hell their charts are.
I was expecting the plectrum but wasn't expecting package number two (or number three for that matter, which I'll show you later in the week). Alistair, from ephemera-loving We Made This (who, incidentally, have one of the most extremely interesting design-related blogs) very kindly sent me this BOAC Route Map.
The cover was designed by Erwin Fabian who worked periodically for Penguin probably around the same time that he did this.
Born in Berlin, Fabian was one of many creative types that fled Germany to avoid the Nazis: first to England, deported to Australia then back to London after the War where he worked as a graphic designer between 1949 and 1962. At that point he moved back to Australia and concentrated his efforts on Abtract Expressionist sculpture.
Of course, it's an extremely interesting map too; I count four line-screened colours plus that red, curiously overprinted quite crudely rather than intergrated into the design (to accommodate changes in routes or so the map artwork could be relayed for different journeys I'd guess).
Recent Comments