Tag: books

Categories / Books, Design and Interiors, Kids

Alain Grée products at Saison

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Alain gree stickers

Following on from yesterday's Puffin book, here's more retro illustration for kids, this time with a French flavour, courtesy of Alain Grée at the Saison shop.

Alain Grée was the author and illustrator of over 300 children's books in France, mainly published during the 1960s and 70s. His work is now being widely reproduced across a wide range of stationery and gift items, from notebooks to posters to pocket mirrors.

The travel stickers pictured show an example of his distinctive style – in a colour palette of purple, pink and black he illustrates everything you'd need for a good holiday in France including cheese, wine and the Eiffel Tower!

The stickers cost €5 while the notebooks and posters cost €12 each.

See the range online

Categories / Books, Kids

Puffin by Design book

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Puffin by design

Founded just five years after Penguin, Puffin is celebrating seventy years of publishing. Puffin by Design, written by Phil Baines (who also wrote Penguin by Design) offers a visual history of the publishing house over that period. 

Puffin was founded with the aim of producing affordable, well illustrated books for children. This book features 500 of the imprint's most memorable covers and traces the development of their list, from titles designed to explain the then ongoing Second World War to children, to publishing much loved kids classics, such as Stig of the Dump, Mary Poppins and Watership Down in their paperback format. It also looks at their work with illustrators like Shirley Hughes. 

A fascinating read, that's sure to remind you of some childhood favourites, the book costs £14 from Amazon

Categories / Art and Photography, Books, Design and Interiors, Food and Drink

Classic Faber and Faber covers at Art Meets Print

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Faber good dishes

A while ago we wrote about Faber Firsts, new covers of classic Faber and Faber novels, done in styles that echoed the company's 80 years of publishing. Now you can go back to some of their original book jacket designs with these prints available at Art Meets Print. 

They've pulled out some gems from the Faber and Faber archive to reproduce, including this jacket design for 'Good Dishes from Tinned Foods' by Ambrose Heath, just one from the extensive food and drink section. There's also a selection of poetry covers available, featuring the original Pentagram designs. 

Prices depending on the size of your print and whether you choose to have it on canvas or paper. They start at £34.95 for a 30 x 20cm print on canvas of one of the designs and go up to £299 for a 90 x 137.5cm canvas. 

See the range online

Categories / Art and Photography, Books, Design and Interiors

Penguin Decades

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Penguin Decades

Penguin are celebrating 75 years of publishing with the Penguin Decades series. They've re-issued key novels from the 1950s, 60s, 70s and 80s which they claim 'helped shape modern Britain' and define the period they were released. 

Each decade's books are given a distinct look with the work of a different artist. The 1950s all have covers designed by Peter Blake – including the version of From Russia with Love shown above – while the selected books from the 60s, such as A Clockwork Orange and A Kestral for a Knave, feature the artwork of Allen Jones. 

Zandra Rhodes' patterns grace the cover of the selected books from the 70s, while John Squire tackles the 80s. 

The books cost £7.19 each, a reasonable price for a nice bit of design and a meaty read. 

Find out more from the Penguin website

Categories / Books, Design and Interiors

Make It! Mid-Century Modern on-line ‘how to’ book

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MCM-eBook-11-0911

It's hard to keep track of the hundreds of mid-century classics we've featured on this site, alongside the contemporary pieces that use them for inspiration. However, all too often the style comes with a hefty price tag. If you like the look, but not the high costs involved, you may be interested in 'Make It', a how-to book on mid-century style that's available on-line. 

The book has been put together by the people behind the Curlby web community and features twelve different projects ranging from how to make a Nelson-style clock, as shown above, to recreating your own Calder-influenced mobile or Girard-inspired Ottoman. The text also has information on all the designers highlighted. 

With templates and patterns included, if you're craftily inclined, it sounds well worth the $9.99 for a downloadable colour pdf or $18 for a full colour printed version. 

Find out more on-line

Categories / Art and Photography, Books

Masters of Early Russian Children’s Books prints

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Lebedev print

If you're organising your new year courtesy of the Redstone Press 2010 diary we featured a little while back, you may be interested to learn Redstone have collaborated with Magma to produce seven Masters of Early Russian Children's Books prints, based on some of the 1920s and '30s illustrations reproduced in the diary.

The prints are all striking and unusual images and include Vladimir Lebedev's 1929 illustration of woman driving to train station from 1929, shown above. Each print is hand-screen printed as part of a limited edition of 100 and costs £30. 

Buy it from the Magma website