We’ve only just discovered the work of Brighton-based illustrator, Sean Sims.
We had a hard time choosing which of his designs to highlight, they’re all so amazing! He’s got a great style, colourful palette and lighthearted and humorous approach to his subject matter.
David Klein was a hugely talented and prolific illustrator. He’s known mainly for the dozens of colourful travel posters he designed, especially those for TWA, during the 1950s & 60s. You can feast your eyes on many more if you visit his website.
This cute illustrated tray has been getting a lot of views, comments & favourites since we added it to the H is for Home website and Flickr stream last week. We spotted it on a stall when we visited the Lincoln Antique and Home Fair and knew that it would be perfect for our shop!
Longtime followers of our blog will know that we love the art of Charley Harper. This one, entitle “Octoberama” is one of our favourites! He was very prolific and his work can be found as originals artworks, prints, books, calendars, stationery, mouse mats… the list goes on & on… all of which can be bought from either the Charley Harper estate website or Amazon UK or USA.
We’re big fans of postage stamps here at H is for Home and this gorgeous example was designed by British fashion designer, Paul Smith. It’s one of a set he recently designed for the Isle of Man to commemorate the London 2012 Olympic Games.
Oh, and did you know that Paul Smith is a HUGE cycling fan?
We’re through the holiday season and a couple of days into 2012 but we wanted to share this festive peacock illustration with you. It’s a digital illustration by the very talented Galia Bernstein. She’s a Brooklyn-based illustrator, a textile designer and an amateur ceramic artist and printmaker and blogs about her work here. She has even adorned walls in her home with her beautiful birds!
This print (although without the Christmas bauble in its mouth) is available from her Etsy shop.
With it having been Bonfire Night on Saturday, here’s a gorgeous vintage Brock’s Fireworks advertising poster that will blow you away! ☺
We love the folk art inspired illustrations of Alexander Girard and have just discovered that The Alexander Girard Color [Board Book] is available to pre-order from Amazon.
The Great Northern Contemporary Craft Fair 2011 is being held this weekend in Manchester city centre - we went to the preview night on Thursday.
It was great to see designer-makers whose work we’ve long admired - there was also the thrill of seeing fresh, new exhibitors.
We featured Ken Eardley, whose ceramics are shown above in last year’s GNCCF blog post - once again, his stand had real impact. Things are going really well for him with magazine features such as this recent one in BBC Homes & Antiques.
Another striking space belonged to Jane Blease who works primarily with bentwood & reclaimed plastic often with her characteristic hand worked thread detailing. A recent artist residency in India has clearly inspired some of Jane’s new pieces. It’s interesting charting artists’ new developments & influences.
The Radiance stand belonging to Hannah Nunn always delivers the goods - her hand cut paper light shades look great when displayed en masse…
…and we loved her new seed pod window hangings.
Ruth Green, who we’ve seen at GNCCF in previous years, also had some lovely new works…
…and she’s also branched out into illustrated books, notebooks & note cards.
With autumn setting in, Andrea Lord’s &made display offered some warm seasonal comforts…
…such as these gorgeous cushions & cosies.
As we mentioned earlier, it’s really exciting to discover new makers and their work…
…we’ll highlight just a couple who made an impact on us.
The first was Gemma Truman, whose hand-blown glass & seagrass hangings and vases are absolutely exquisite - they’re inspired by South African weaverbird nests. We also thought they were very reminiscent of those old fashioned glass fishing net floats.
Second was Louise Hibbert.
Her pieces have a natural feel and use subtle, earthy, yet striking colours.
As you can see from her salt & pepper mills, they’re organic, tactile and oh so beautiful - they just cry out to be picked up, handled and caressed.
The show runs till this Sunday, so visit if you can! We’ve only featured homewares in this post, but there’s also lots of jewellery and fashion on display… and all of it’s for sale… so go on, get your Christmas shopping done early!
I love this bold and funky, vintage-inspired illustration. She was produced by Malika Favre, a London-based, French designer, for Wallpaper Magazine.
We discovered the work of Tomas King through a link on his daughter, Lucy’s (a.k.a. Me Old China, a.k.a. The Bowerbird) blog. What can I say? Thomas is a hugely talented artist & illustrator - and, as the saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree - Lucy’s work is also incredibly covetable!
We did a recent post about owls, but forgot to include the illustration below - a charcoal & wash study of barn owls by John Busby.
However, it’s given us the opportunity to blog about this collection of magazines from which the illustration was taken.
They’re vintage 1970s RSPB magazines that we picked them up in a local charity shop - 20 or 30 of them in total.
We’re very fond of birds and see numerous species on our dog walks, but it was the magazine covers that were of initial interest…
…with their varied & striking artwork.
Artists featured in this post include Keith Shackleton, John Paige, Eric Ennion, Kenneth Waterfield, Robert Greenhalf, John Busby, Jean Young, Michael Warren, Ian Willis, Ken Wood, Fulco Pratesi, Philip Rickman and Robert Gillmor.
Some of the work has a real period style - and the magazines are very frame-able as the title & date are kept very restrained.
Inside there are lots of bird related features, stories and advertisements of course… and even more artworks!
It’s virtually impossible to pick an absolute favourite, but it might well be the paper collage below…
…a great spotted woodpecker by John Paige dating from 1973.
We holidayed in North Norfolk over the summer and these woodcuts & silkscreen take us back to that lovely corner of the world.
We’ll be keeping an eye out for some more of these vintage issues.
The modern editions have high-tech photographic covers, with attention grabbing banners & adverts. That’s OK of course - but we think these earlier copies are actually more interesting - and far more charming.
We have a really fabulous book for today’s Bookmarks post.
It’s Menu Design in America, 1850-1985 by Steven Heller & John Mariani and edited by Jim Heimann.
The book charts the history of menu design in America in the 19th & 20th centuries.
The menus featured inevitably incorporate the evolution & development of food…
…but they also draw in American and social history, politics, immigration, civil rights, prohibition, social taboos & norms for various eras - some of which can be quite an eye opener.
Fans of graphic design and typography will also be in heaven!
There’s a broad subject overview at the start of the book followed by further insightful captions on each page.
They add details for specific venues or menus - artists/designers, who owned/frequented an establishment, its popularity, dates, details about the food - chefs, new introductions, where items may have been sourced etc etc.
In some cases, there are accompanying photographs of the actual restaurant locations, buildings, interiors and the diners themselves.
The menus are the real stars of this book of course. There are nearly 400 pages crammed full of fabulous examples - both the stunning covers and their menu contents will give hours of pleasure.
We’ve included lots of images for this post, but even this is only a small proportion of those contained within the book.
Art Nouveau to Art Deco, Jazz age to Space age - it’s all here!
The menus are sourced from hotels, restaurants, nightclubs, diners, steamships, cruise ships, trains & planes.
We know one thing though - after browsing this book for an hour we were starving!
Some of the menus had up to a hundred items to choose from.
There are familiar dishes such as steaks & burgers (done in a myriad of different ways of course).
Others have choices that were new to us - ‘stewed terrapin with hominy’, ‘fried smelts with figaro sauce’, ‘calfs head en tortue’.
There are enjoyable aspects to take from all the menus - our favourites in terms of design & artwork are those dating from the 1930s and the 1950s. There’s a few in this book we’d love to add to our collection.
We started acquiring vintage menus some time ago. In fact, we’ve blogged about the subject before.
We love both the artwork and browsing the dishes on offer. They can be stored in a folder, but also look great framed - and as you can see from the wonderful examples in this book, the designs can be just stunning.
So we were sold even before opening a page, but if you are a newcomer to the subject, this book can be enjoyed as pure eye candy or will provide a fascinating insight into the history of a nation through its culinary culture.
Mouth-watering stuff - we can highly recommend it!
Menu Design in America, 1850-1985 is also available from the H is for Home Vintage Design bookshops - UK & US
[Many thanks to Taschen for supplying this review copy]
We’ve just seen this record in a nearby antiques centre and liked its cover so much we took a couple of quick snaps.
Not being familiar with the work of Tommy Watt we didn’t actually buy it, but having given him a quick listen on Spotify it’s very 60s cocktail party with a bit of “Bewitched” and “I Dream of Jeannie” thrown in!
Taking another look at it, the artwork is very reminiscent of one of our favourite illustrators, Bill Charmatz.
It would look great in a small frame - we might go back for it!
These are the big eyes of our latest owl - in this case a pottery money box.
They never stay with us long as these feathered friends are consistently popular in our shop.
Whether in the form of money boxes, mugs, pot stands, textile prints, pictures or book illustrations.
We’ve blogged a fair few times about the great illustrator, Kenneth Townsend. He designed the cutest owl as part of his Menagerie series - apparently the owl was his favourite animal!
Another wonderful illustrator with a thing for owls was Celestino Piatti who once said, “You can draw an owl a thousand times, and never find out its secret”.
image credit: Fishink
We’ve had a quick trawl on the web for some more owls - here are some favourites:
image credit: Vintage Kids’ Books my Kid Loves
Wise Ol’ Canister, Orange: £118 - Anthropologie
Happy owl open edition print by Matte Stephens: $35 - Etsy
image credit: mmmcrafts
image credit: Shailesh Chavda
