Culinary Classics Cover Countless Cultures

This simply gorgeous Great Food series makes me hungry for the entire collection from Penguin Books. They are brilliantly designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, senior cover designer at Penguin, with the lovely lettering of Stephen Raw. The paperback covers feature spot varnishes and embossing to enhance the lettering and patterned photos of the background images. The patterns, each based upon ceramic surface designs specific to the period of the book's text, spill over to the rainbow-colored spines. Old pottery marks were the inspiration for placing the title lettering inside the culinary containers. Penguin released the series in the UK in April, but those of us in the US will have to wait until late October to get our mitts upon them. 

:: Found here and here.

Alan Trotter of Greater Than or Equal to, interviewed Bickford-Smith recently about the Great Food series in this video below. Delightful!

A serious interview with designer Coralie Bickford-Smith about her Great Food series for Penguin from Alan Trotter on Vimeo.

Numerology Takes on Letterology

Chapter headings from the First Book in Arithmetic, 1888, Harper & Brothers, Franklin Square. Early infographics for the math-challenged.

:: From the Letterology Archives.

Q Card

Nice Q card designed by Jon Jackson.

Type Inside Shapes

First image above: Cover design for 1954 British Arts Council publication.
Second image: Romanian matchbox label, undated, but would guess late '50s.
:: Via Jane McDevitt's photostream.





















:: Matchbook cover for Huddle Restaurant from Jericl Cat's photostream.






















Langston Hughs' First Book of Jazz from 1955. This is actually the third book in a series of five books that Langston Hughes (1902-1967) wrote for the Franklin Watts First Books series. This was designed by Cliff Roberts (1929-1999) who was a cartoonist and animator. His cartoons appeared in magazines such as The New Yorker and Playboy. He worked as an animator on Sesame Street, and wrote and drew the short-lived Sesame Street newspaper comic strip. Ariel Winter has lots more to say about Langston's book series on his wonderful blogsite We Too Were Children, Mr. Barrie. And read more about the brilliant artwork of Cliff Roberts there too.
:: From Ariel Winter's photostream.