A journal by artist and designer John Coulthart.
Not all the bookplates here are German, the selection includes examples from Franz von Bayros and Walter Crane. The plates are from the 1907 proceedings of the Ex Libris Association of Berlin. I’d not seen anything by Mathilde Ade before but a quick search reveals her to have been a prolific bookplate illustrator. There’s more of her work here (and that blog is also worth a browse).
Artist: Phil May (1895).
The bookplates housed at the Library of Congress aren’t all available for online viewing which is a shame when their collection includes notable examples such as these. Three of the plates here were designed by the artists whose books they identified; two of the others are for writers—Edgar Rice Burroughs and Jack London—while the sixth one is for Charlie Chaplin. The artists’ plates look like continuations of the work of their creators which makes them less interesting than those of the writers and actor, all three of which say something about the way these men saw themselves reflected in their work: the pantheon of characters from Burroughs’ fiction; Chaplin’s poor boy conquering London; and Jack London’s lone wolf daring you to try to steal his book.
Artist: Frederic Remington (between 1880? and 1909).
Artist: Studley Burroughs (between 1914 and 1922).
Bernard Quaritch’s A Collection of Facsimiles from Examples of Historic or Artistic Book-binding (1889) contains a hundred colour examples like these. Decorative boards happen to be a significant feature of some forthcoming work of my own but you’ll have to wait a while before seeing the results.
Previously on { feuilleton }
• Historic Design in Printing
• Hand bookbindings
One of Faig Ahmed‘s melted Azerbaijani rugs.
• “I asked [William Burroughs] about the future of typography and he said that letterforms would go back to hieroglyphs, similar to the ancient Egyptians.” Jonathan Barnbrook discussing the thinking behind his design for blackstar, the new David Bowie album.
• “…a thick, yellow fog fills the air, sinks, crawls on the very ground; at 30 paces a house or a steam-ship look like ink-stains on blotting paper.” PD Smith review London Fog, a history of the capital’s lethal pea-soupers by Christine Corton.
• At Rue Morgue: Dejan Ognjanovic asks seven writers and editors why HP Lovecraft is still relevant. Related: big thanks to Paul Gallagher for plugging my Lovecraft calendar at Dangerous Minds.
• Some end-of-year weirdness from Moon Wiring Club: Into The Chattering Ground, a sample of the new releases available at the MWC website.
• Elaine Lustig Cohen: accidental graphic designer. Related: book covers and other designs by Elaine Lustig Cohen.
• The tomb that architect John Soane built for his wife inspired the shape of Gilbert Scott’s red telephone box.
• Mix of the week: Stephen O’Malley at the controls of Stuart Maconie’s Freak Zone on BBC Radio 6.
• At Dirge Magazine: S. Elizabeth talks to Alice Rogers about art and occultism.
• Simon Callow on taking 25 years to write a three-volume life of Orson Welles.
• Todd Haynes on Cate Blanchett, Saul Leiter and Queer Cinema.
• Le Freak (1978) by Chic | Freak (2003) by LFO | Jovan Freak (Rune Lindbaek Nomaden Mix) (2012) by Georges Vert
Burgeoning plant life, fungal forms and flights of insects fill the screen in this vivid animation by Hideki Inaba. The music is by Beatsofreen. (Via Full Fathom Five)