Book Review: Lifestyle Illustration of the ’60s
The decade of the ’60s seems to conjure up a lot of images of femininity to me — slinky James Bond gal, mod miniskirted model, Donna Reedy housewife, hippie chick, California beach bunny. All of those archetypes, and many more, are on full display in Lifestyle Illustration of the ’60s, a brick-like volume of vintage magazine illustrations expertly selected by Rian Hughes. Sure, there are some men pictured within these pages, but since the illustrations come from various popular British women’s mags of the era (Woman, Woman’s Own, Homes and Gardens, Woman’s Journal to name a few) they tend to focus on the fairer sex rendered in every color of the rainbow. The women are generally seen in swooning, romantic poses with body language and facial expressions that hint at some intrigue or outside danger (what is the trench coated beauty on page 322 looking at?).
What most impressed me about this book is how craftily the illustrators worked with white space and printing techniques to make a visually stunning statement. The artwork is presented in chronological order, reproduced in graphic layouts that punch up the often stunning color palettes the artists used. The earlier examples are more conservative subject-wise, with prim ladies emoting in billowy dresses, but the art is surprisingly daring in technique. As the ’60s move along, we see wilder colors and looser, more artfully sketch-like renderings, until 1966-67 brings on a mod, Carnaby Street influence with a graphic punch. Cartoons, collage, surrealism, revival and psychedelic styles all get their due, but by 1969 we’re back in the realm of glamorously swooning ladies rendered in washy paints. Some things never change, it seems.
This book focuses solely on British publications, which honestly let me down a little, but many American artists of the era are represented here with quality work by the likes of Coby Whitmore, Andy Virgil and Lynn Buckham. One of my favorites from that period, Bob Peak, is represented only once — a striking image of a kissing couple dominated by the black space between their profiles. Wow!
Lifestyle Illustration of the ’60s is available at Amazon.com, of course. I got my copy at discount seller Edward R. Hamilton for much cheaper, however. Fiell is set to release a companion volume, Lifestyle Illustrations of the ’50s, later on this month.
Busy Hands
In honor of MTV’s 20th 30th birthday, let’s take a look at a segment from Liquid Television, the 1991-94 animated hodgepodge best known for unleashing Beavis & Butt-head onto the world. “Invisible Hands” was an eight part L.T. series created by comic artist Richard Sala, who shares some interesting background info on the show on his weblog. The creepy pulp-horror vibe is on full display in part 1, below.
YouTube user ZappVid9 has a lot of Liquid Television segments on his channel, stuff that I totally forgot about. If the names Dog-Boy or Winter Steele ring any bells for ya, head over there and watch.
Book Review: The 3D Type Book
Recently I got another swell, visually resplendent book from the folks at Laurence King Publishing. The 3D Type Book is pretty much what the title says: an exploration of creative typography off the printed page and executed in our own, living world. For this project, London-based designers Agathe Jacquillat and Tomi Vollauschek assembled more than 300 alphabets rendered in neon lights, cut paper, clothing, sticks, stones, garbage, grated cheese and the human body (the alphabet made of skin squashed with clothespins is guaranteed to make you squirm). Most of the examples are pictured in simple, A to Z fashion — whatever is lost in legibility is gained in the sheer ingenuity on display.
Although many pieces in The 3D Type Book are the handiwork of designers working in the commercial arena, several examples push the boundaries into fine art suitable for a museum display. One of my favorite examples is the CMYK Alphabet from London-based Evelin Kasikov. Kasilov’s ethereal letterforms, rotated on top of themselves and beautifully rendered in embroidery, nicely bridge the gab between computer technology and the D.I.Y. aesthetic espoused by Etsy and other crafty communities. Cool as it is, it’s just one sample of many that inspire an “oh, wow” reaction. On the whole, the book is very Euro-centric (a minor complaint) but also a great record of creativity being found in the oddest, most unusual places.
Addendum: Vollauschek has alerted me to 3d-type.com, the book’s official site, where the complete contents can be previewed.
The 3D Type Book is published by Laurence King. Buy at Amazon.com here.
What Shall We Eat?
General Foods’ Home Meal Planner from 1961 was a booklet that Christopher found on the Free pile at his workplace. It outlines how to plan your meals smartly and efficiently — involving lots of General Foods products, of course. Amongst the tips and recipes are some wonderful typography and illustrations depicting a perfect housewife preparing meals for her nuclear family. For dealing with something as mundane as meal planning, the whole thing is incredibly elegant and Betty Draperish. Several images from the booklet were scanned and posted in my Cool Vintage Illustration flickr set.
Speaking of Betty Draper, we’re finally getting into Mad Men. Seemingly everyone I know was raving about the show when it first premiered, and I subsequently checked out an episode. It was … just okay. Beautifully crafted with a committed cast, but also cold, excessively dour and (worst of all) having a smug, revisionist attitude about the ’60s. I decided to give it another try when Amazon had a sale on the DVDs last year. Although the first few episodes still have that annoyingly smug tone, both of us were soon wrapped up in the drama and storylines. There were still a few so-so episodes from that year, but now we’re halfway through the second season DVDs and there’s a noticeable improvement in the acting and plot development. Can’t wait to check out the following two seasons — what an enthralling drama.
Anyhow, let’s indulge in something that Betty Draper would obviously find quite handy (whenever she isn’t fretting about her heel of a hubby):
Cheap Thrill: Junior Deluxe Editions
For years I’ve seen these colorful ’50s hardbacks known as Junior Deluxe Editions in antique and thrift stores, but I’ve never given them much thought before coming across the beautiful Flickr group devoted to them. Though the books are not particularly rare or collectible, the covers have a charming, folk-meets-modern sensibility — and they look dynamite sitting on a shelf. From what I’ve gathered, the Junior Deluxe Editions were a mail-order based program from Doubleday in which customers signed on to receive new volumes on a monthly basis. In a plan similar to the Columbia House record club, the highlighted book of the month was automatically shipped to customers unless they specifically asked to opt out. There were about 90 titles in all, issued from the mid ’40s up to 1962 or thereabouts.
My official quest began a year ago at our local VNSA used book saleorama. Surely they would have a few Junior Deluxe Editions. I didn’t find any, however, until this year’s sale on February 12th. For fifty cents to a dollar apiece, I managed to snag nice copies of National Velvet, Sherlock Holmes, Tales from Shakespeare, Swiss Family Robinson and Robinson Crusoe. Even the volunteer lady who helped me check out was impressed. Coincidentally I also got a rather beat-up library copy of Bible Stories for Young Readers this week at a Wickenberg, Arizona thrift for two quarters. Score!
I set up a little Flickr set for my collection, adding to it as it grows. I suppose they’ve been an inspiration for LitKids as well (and, who knows, might serve as the background for future prints). Enjoy!
New at LitKids: Mole from Wind in the Willows
When it came time to create a new LitKids design late last year, I was a bit stymied until coming across a battered copy of Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows at the local Salvation Army. I knew the book was well-loved and was familiar with the Disney animated version, and the opportunity to do an animal character was too irresistible. I read the book pretty quickly and found it utterly charming. The main characters are Mole, Rat, Badger and Toad. Although the conceited Toad winds up getting the most storyline, I most loved the sweet Mole and wanted to make him the subject of this print.
Unlike some of the earlier prints, this one was a breeze to do. The background is some Victorian era clip art of a flower, screen printed in bright yellow. I then used some sage green spray paint on the mole shape, making a nice speckled texture. A spray of gold paint and the dark green mole image was complete. Here it is, listed on Etsy.
As a bonus, here’s a photo Christopher shot of me sitting at the table we had set up last weekend at (excellent) local bookseller Changing Hands. We were there for five six hours peddling prints, and at the end of the day we wound up selling ten prints — including more copies of the Mole print than anything else!
No Country For Small Men
I love miniature dioramas, especially when they’re photographed well — Gizmodo spotlighted one such collection recently. Florian Tremp’s flickr set with insanely detailed recreations of scenes from No Country for Old Men (the book, apparently) is full of wonderfully evocative images. Check it out!
An Arty, Smarty Holiday
How was your holiday? Hope you had a good one. Ours was filled with more art than usual, since both Christopher and I gifted each other with some great framed lovelies that we hung throughout the house.
Every year in my family, we draw names to get one big gift for whichever family member’s name gets drawn (it’s much simpler that way). This year I ended up getting my own spouse… so in addition to the normal gifts I usually buy, a bigger, secret gift had to be purchased. Mine was this wonderful “Little Owls” print created by a British Etsy seller by the name of Roddy & Ginger. I had it framed in a dark Mission-style wood frame — and it looks fantastic!
I love having new art in the home. Christopher also gave some swell stuff by famous ’60s/’70s print artist David Weidman. Weidman sold his work pre-framed, in both original screen prints and high quality reproductions (sort of an Etsy seller before his time, actually). This cat print is one of the repros, but it looks great above my dresser:
And here’s an original Weidman framed screen print of three quail executed in very ’60s shades of harvest gold, burnt orange and brown. Looks wonderful on the blue bedroom wall:
In addition to the two pieces of fab art, Christopher gifted me with a couple of books off my Amazon wish list — Dan Nadel’s Art In Time: Comic Book Adventures 1940-1980 and Chris Nichols’ The Leisure Architecture of Wayne McAllister.
C. also needed some books to read. I gave him a couple of things NOT on his wish list (but perfect for him), Anthony Slide’s Inside The Hollywood Fan Magazine and the Images of America photo collection Early Warner Bros. Studios. Good background info for our next Burbank trip.
Finally I also gave the spouse some DVD sets picked up at Big Lots and Target — Star Trek Fan Collective: Klingon, Perry Mason Season 3, Vol. 1 and a Fox film collection containing Fantastic Voyage, The Lost World, The Towering Inferno and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea. Hours of viewing fun from those hauls!
Gumshoes and Shady Dames Away
Mark of classic film blog Out of the Past is counting down his choices for the 100 Greatest Posters of Film Noir; #100-91 is already posted. Having enjoyed his Netflix reviews for some time now, I’m really looking forward to this series. Movie posters from that era tend to be either hideous or beautiful… can’t wait to see what comes up!
Forsaking All Others
Over the weekend, the spouse and I caught Married Life starring Chris Cooper, Pierce Brosnan and the wonderful Patricia Clarkson. While we both enjoyed this neo-Hitchcock period drama very much, I loved the opening credits sequence. This was created by the Venice, California based Prologue studio. Loverly:
Paint Chips Ahoy
How often do you see a TV commercial that truly captures your eyes with beauty and subtlety? The Sherwin Williams campaign with animated paint chips does that for me. These play frequently on The Weather Channel; every time they come on, I sit and stare — they’re almost hypnotic. Wish I could say the same thing for other W.C. advertisers such as Newsmax or Crazy Critters.
Child Life, 1959 Style
Here are a few scans of the May 1959 issue of an obscure ’50s kiddie magazine called Child Life. All three are nice examples of stylish child-oriented book illustration of the era, but the magazine didn’t credit any of the artists — so any help on the IDs would be appreciated! This mag was a birthday gift for Christopher, my 1959 baby.
Alice in Wonderland, and at LitKids
I’ve been working on getting a swell Alice In Wonderland print up at LitKids. This is a tough one — out of the 30 prints I’ve tried so far, only about eight are good quality and sellable. The combination of a complex illustration and our dry weather means that my silk screen is getting clogged earlier and the images are coming out faint. I might have to put LitKids on hold until our weather gets moister.
The ones that did come out are really nice, however. I love the interplay between my design and the tinted John Tenniel illustrations from the 1946 edition of Through the Looking Glass I used. Next step: getting it on the Etsy front page!
Doggies Need Haircuts, Too
Something we fished out of the trash: an Oster electric dog clipper in its original box. It was missing a few parts, but I did manage to scan these swell illustrations from the instruction booklet. Who knew small animal grooming was so complex? I love the very ’60s character of the drawing on the bottom.
Good Humor Man
On the occasion of his dad’s 80th birthday, illustrator Drew Friedman shares a batch of vintage book covers from the man in question, Bruce Jay Friedman. I remember enjoying the elder Friedman’s The Lonely Guy’s Book Of Life in college, and I’ve always been a fan of Drew’s stippled portraits of borscht belt comedians and b-movie actors of yore (and now we’re Facebook friends!). It wasn’t until recently that I discovered the two were related. Happy birthday.
