Ladybird by Design

ike the many thousands of British children who, like me, grew up reading Ladybird Books in the 1970s—and the decade either side of this—can doubtless recall a certain fascination with at least one Ladybird title. For me it was the beautifully realistic and slightly unnerving illustrations by Robert Lumley for The Three Billy Goats Gruff. Like […]

Typography e-book

In the summer of 2014 I wrote series of blog posts for the Interactive Design Institute (IDI) on the theme of typography and typeface design. The posts are very much aimed at those wanting to gain an insight into the fundamentals of type and some of the approaches to its design. IDI have now collated […]

Olde Tayles Newlye Relayted (Crawhall, Tuer & Field)

ome while ago I was fortunate to purchase an original copy of an intriguing book illustratrated by Joseph Crawhall II of Newcastle. The book is called ‘Olde Tayles Newlye Relayted: Enryched with all ye ancyente embellyshmentes’ and it was published by Field & Tuer of the Leadenhall Press in London in 1883. The book comprises of a series of folk ballads from […]

The Depiction of British Rural Life: Book Illustration Between the Wars

“Friday was St George’s Day. St George for England. I suppose the ‘England’ means something slightly different to each of us. You may, for example, think of the white cliffs of Dover, or you may think of a game of bowls on Plymouth Hoe, or perhaps a game of cricket at Old Trafford or a […]