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.

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).

Yog Aasan Ate Tandrusti

I found this Indian yoga manual in a charity shop last year. I'm sure that to the designer, the moiré patterns, horrendous misregistration, atrociously uneven blacks and smudged type were entirely unwelcome adjuncts to his work, but to me they all contribute to a charming piece of vernacular art. The layouts have clearly been arrived at entirely by eye, and the decision to present the various yoga positions as cut-outs is an intriguing one, in which the figure is used purely as an exercise in composition.