Anderson tapes titles

Came across this great computer-style font from the opening titles of Sidney Lumet's 'The Anderson Tapes' the other day. It's worth seeking out if you've not seen it.

Munich Olympic stamps

Three examples of stamp sets commemorating the1972 Olympic games: an Australian set produced for the summer games at Munich; one from the USA for the same games; and a German set publicising the subsequent winter games at Sapporo in Japan.

The pictogram used on the USA stamp is part of Otl Aicher's famous set, but I don't recognise the ones used on the Australian stamps. They appear to be half-way between the 1964 Tokyo pictograms and Aicher's work, but I don't have information about the designers of any of these sets, and would be glad to find out if anybody does know.

Pulp round-up

They're not design classics but I love pulp fiction sleeves. They transport me back to the days when you used to get big wire baskets of these exotic items outside Woolworths, yellow-edged and notched, like some initiation mark commemorating their long journey to these shores.

They promised a world of suspense, adventure and horror in the most hyperbolic of language. Though their more pedestrian brethren, the airport novels are still with us, the pulps seem to have vanished entirely, victims of a more sophisticated age, perhaps.

Guinness Book of Records 1972

As I get older I find myself increasingly drawn to the re-investigation of fondly remembered books and objects. Often the actuality falls far short of the memory, but I was delighted to find the 1972 Guinness Book of Records in a car boot sale last summer, for it is every bit as beguiling as I remember it.

This was one of my grandfather's books, and along with a fascinating set of encyclopedias it was my favourite choice from his shelf. So how do you engage the interest of a child with what is essentially a book of lists? You do it with exquisite Illustration, sensitive layout skills and wonderful draughtsmanship.

The colophon credits layout and Illustration to one Denzil Reeves, whom I've found passing reference to on the web but no biography (if you know more, please tell). His calligraphic skills are excellent—the cover type and frontispiece are hand drawn—but nevertheless this is a curious book. Illustrated title pages evoke the conventions of illuminated manuscripts, but at the same time it is a wholly modernist construction.

The clarity of the book comes from the deceptively simple grid and typography. Large titles are in Clarendon, while the main body is set in a text serif (a little too small to identify), with captioning in Helvetica. The grid is eight column, with two columns of body text and two thin columns which hold both captions and hanging sub heads. Pictures are black and white, but every chapter uses a different spot ink, out of which the Illustrations are often knocked out. Tables are clearly set, and no page ever feels over dense.

One of the things which occupied me longest about this book as a child was the cover, which is a masterpiece of playfulness. It's a rendering of an antique shop, populated with items from the book itself. The rear cover reproduces the view, but from behind the glass, enclosing in a good natured piece of trompe l'oeil a book which is to my mind a masterpiece of popular art. As the Guinness bottle in the window is labelled, priceless…

Subliminal Seduction

Are you being sexually aroused by this picture? If your first thought is "No, it's a vodka and tonic", Wilson Bryan Key would beg to differ.

This magnificently unhinged book once occupied far too much of our time as art students, examining Ritz Crackers for the word 'sex' baked into them and scrutinizing drinks ads for messages airbrushed on the ice cubes. All absolute rubbish of course, which credited ad-men with access to a cabalistic insight into human nature denied us ordinary mortals, but it's a fascinating comment on the times that a book like this could become the runaway success it did.

For the cold war generation raised on 'Manchurian Candidate'-style myths of Soviet brainwashing, the new savvy advertising bred suspicion. Too much marijuana and an almost pathological hatred of 'the man' made it but a small step for bedsit philosophers who found hidden messages in The Beatles' 'Abbey Road' to find them in whisky ads too. This was the year of 'The Parallax View', and also of 'A Clockwork Orange', so 'Subliminal Seduction' was by no means an aberration.

Key's book followed on from Lance Packard's 'Hidden Persuaders', but 'SS' took the idea of subliminal messages to its ludicrous conclusion. If you come across a copy it's well worth picking up, if only to relish the dodgy post-Freudian pop psychology and sample the almost palpable mood of post 60s comedown.

70s matchbox art

This is a collection of artwork from assorted 1970s matchboxes. I got them from a flea market in Krakow along with some amazing Russian cigarette cards which I'll be posting shortly. The playfulness, the confidence, the cheeky appropriation (spot the nod to A Clockwork Orange) all make you remember why you wanted to become a designer in the first place. These little sleeves exude the sheer joy of mark making.

UPDATE: I thought at first that these were Polish matchbox sleeves, but I've since been informed that they are a mixture of Czech, Icelandic and maybe more (if anybody recognises any other countries please let me know).

World Cup 74 Book by Willy Fleckhaus

On this blog I'd like to showcase things that haven't been seen too often, so as much as I'm tempted to run some pages from Twen, that particular magazine has featured prominently in design histories and websites of late. I've never seen this book reproduced anywhere before though. It's a World Cup 1974 review by Twen's wonderful art director Willy Fleckhaus, and I recognised his tell-tale style as soon as I flicked through the pages in the charity shop where I found it. All the Twen touches are present: dramatic juxtapositions of foreground and horizon line shots; an echo of that in the narrow and wide type column measures (six column rather than Twen's twelve); and of course that marvelously playful logo, which is shown here on the dustcover, and in its debossed form on the cloth-bound cover. A great find.