Hot on the heals of Volume 56 comes 58 with some more amazing content. Including a great piece by F H K Henrion on the rationalization of papers and inks (accompanied by pages from his catalogue for Simplex Piling); a facsimile copy of Werkman's The Next Call 9; some excellent and detailed stuff on map design; and a superb fold-out promo for a (then) new-fangled typeface called "Univers" (it'll never catch on).
It's taken me gawd-knows-how-long to get around to uploading another Penrose Annual to Flickr. Volume 56 is packed full of great stuff: from the historical interesting but now obsolete technical advances of the day, through to both timeless and time-specific graphic design. For me, the stand-out piece is a title spread from the Saturday Evening Post feature "The Girl Who Hated Men", designed by Gene Frederico.
Now on Flickr, Volume 52 is exeptional. As well as being the edition that comes with that amazing Swissair leaflet, inside you'll find work by Ken Garland, Carlo Vivarelli, a certain Max Miedinger and articles on Ordnance Survey map production and "Advertising in the Atomic Age".
There's a brilliant article called "Management training: the new concept" by Major-General C. Lloyd, specifically about the state of printing education at the time, lavishly illustrated with examples of beautiful typography, illustration and layout, including work from the Central School of Arts and Crafts (when Colin Forbes was Head of Department).
A seriously dodgy cover I know but inside Volume 54 there's some special stuff, like that astounding Karl Gerstner designed ad. More on Flickr.
Just bought this on ebay, reasonable price. Penrose Annuals are brilliant, rich in content: from the mundane technicalities of press technology to the cutting-edge of typographic development. I've been collecting them (very, very slowly) since I started working. I've got eight, there's lots more to get but I thought it would be good to get some highlights online.
They're actually not that difficult to get hold of, although I expect there's rarities.
For a better insight, read Steve Hare's article for Eye
And more pics on Flickr.
