Posted in Design, The sixties, tagged Formica on February 12, 2015| 4 Comments »
Posted in Design, Facts, The forties, The thirties, tagged 100 years pens, Fountain pens, Waterman on October 26, 2014| 9 Comments »
Waterman 100 years pen, 1942. Guaranteed for a Century, the streamline model was launched x-mas 1939. Colours: forest green, burgundy, navy and black – Designed by John Vassos
It will not surprise regular visitors to hear that I count fountain pens among my many collections. What might surprise you is that my burgundy Waterman 100 years pen from 1944 is still working perfectly. It has only another 30 years to keep its promise – Ted
Image found at DesignIsFine
Posted in Advertising, Art, Design, Illustration, tagged Doronina Tatiana, Kazakhstani Commercial Artists on September 29, 2014| 8 Comments »
Beautiful and colourful illustrations created by Doronina Tatiana. Born in Kazakhstan, Karaganda where she studied at Pedagogical Institute. In 2000 she moved to Russia and worked as a designer at an advertising agency. Since 2007, working on freelancing as an artist and illustrator.
Image found on cuded
Posted in Design, Ephemera, Holidays, Transportation, Traveling, tagged Hotel lables, Luggage lables on September 22, 2014| 7 Comments »
More travelling and holiday memorabilia from a time when it was important to show which hotel one had stayed at. And the labels showed it and were great ads for the hotels as well. It showed what sort of people who chose their establishments – Ted
Posted in Design, Illustration, tagged 1974, J M Paillet, Shop entrances, Shop fronts on September 7, 2014| 1 Comment »
Posted in Design, DIY project, Retro DIY projects, tagged 1912, Advanced Projects In Woodwork, Hobby projects, Mission style, PDF, Woodwork projects on September 4, 2014| 2 Comments »
From the books preface: ADVANCED PROJECTS IN WOODWORK is a collection of projects designed to meet the needs of classes in high school woodworking. These projects presuppose familiarity with woodworking processes, tools, and the two simple joints required in the making of projects contained in the author’s Projects in Beginning in Woodwork and Mechanical Drawing.
The drawings are complete only as to their general dimensions. The working out of details, such as the sizes of mortises and tendons and their locations, is left for the pupil in his work in drawing and design.
It is expected that the projects will afford suitable basic material for classes in woodworking design. It remains for the instructor to point out the manner in which this material may be used. For illustration, many beginning students are slow in appreciation of possible modifications in structure or decoration. Circular tops may be used instead of square or octagonal, and vice versa. Modification of the manner of filling side spaces with slats offers variety in initiative. Vertical posts may be made tapering and vice versa. Rails and stretchers may be variously employed. There is almost always a choice in the matter of joints,-keyed or thru or blind tendon. Fig. I is suggestive as to possible modifications of a type.
The image above is a picture of a new print of the book, the one you can download here is a pdf of the original.
All furniture and other projects in this book are in what is known as Mission Style – Ted
| Click the PDF symbol to download the book -–> |  |
Posted in British, Design, Posters, Transportation, Traveling, tagged British Rail, Portsmouth & Southsea, Railway posters on September 3, 2014| 3 Comments »
Southsea is a seaside resort located in Portsmouth at the southern end of Portsea Island in the county of Hampshire in England. Southsea is within a mile of Portsmouth’s city centre. Southsea has a thriving commercial area which 
includes two national department stores and many other well-known high street chains. It combines these large stores with numerous independent traders which includes charity shops, food retailers and furniture/household goods shops.
Southsea also has a vibrant social scene with numerous bars and eateries which cater for a range of budgets and tastes.
In 1544 Henry VIII built the fort which became known as Southsea Castle. Although it would not have been called that at the time it is recorded as "Southsea Castle" in a map of 1724.
In 1809 a new suburb began to grow. It became known as Southsea after the castle. The first houses were built for skilled workers in the ‘mineral’ streets (Silver Street, Nickel Street etc.). These mineral streets were the most bombed areas of Portsmouth in the Second World War.
Around 1810 Hampshire Terrace, Landport Terrace, King’s Terrace, Jubilee Terrace and Bellevue Terrace were built adjacent to the town walls. Nowadays they form an almost continuous road between the City Centre and the beach.
Southsea remained small until 1835. The area between Castle Road and Victoria Road South was built up between 1835 and 1860 as housing for middle-class families. A prominent architect during this period was Thomas Ellis Owenwho built properties in Kent Road, Queen’s Terrace, Sussex Terrace, Beach Road, Grove Road South, Clarendon Road, Osborne Road and Portland Terrace.
By the 1860s the suburb of Southsea had grown along Clarendon Road as far as Granada Road. In 1857 Southsea gained its own Improvement Commissioners responsible for paving, cleaning and lighting the streets.
After the 1870s, east of Victoria Road, there was new building in the Campbell Road / Outram Road area..
As building proceeded most was put up in the cramped manner typical of much of Portsmouth, a city where space is at a premium.
Southsea suffered badly from bombing in World War II. In particular the main shopping centre, Palmerston Road, was almost completely destroyed.
On 6 June 1994 a drumhead service was held on Southsea Common in front of the War Memorial to commemorate the 50th anniversary of D-Day. The service was attended by all the heads of the states which had participated in the allied landings, notably US President Bill Clinton, HM Queen Elizabeth II and most notably, several members of the American Secret Service. The service was also witnessed by over 100,000 members of the public. Historically, a blessing before battle was offered during a drumhead service which is conducted in the field with the drums forming the altar and the colours serving as the altar cloth.
In 15 September 2000 parts of Southsea were flooded when the pumping station which pumps surface water out to sea was itself flooded during a particularly heavy storm.
On 28 June 2005 Southsea Common was used as a venue for the Trafalgar 200 celebrations. Southsea seafront was an ideal point from which to witness theInternational Fleet Review and evening fire work display.
On 9 August 2011 a fire broke out at the old Joanna’s nightclub, a derelict building situated opposite South Parade Pier. Police sectioned off most of the area and guests at the nearby Best Western Royal Beach Hotel were evacuated as a precaution. Despite rumours circulating on social network sites, the incident was reportedly not linked to the riots taking place. The building was demolished a few days later.
Southsea beach is mostly flint gravel, but with sand exposed at low tide. There are two piers: South Parade Pier and Clarence Pier; both house amusement arcades. South Parade Pier also contains a ballroom and a bar area. Clarence Pier is adjacent to a permanent funfair.
A prominent sight out to sea is the four large forts created in the 1860s as part of an attempt to fortify the city against the threat of invasion. From the shore they look oval but are, in fact, round. They were part of defences which included land-based forts all around the city but as they were never used in action, they became known as Palmerston’s Folly, after the Prime Minister who initiated them.
To commemorate the millennium, a scenic walk was created extending to Gunwharf Quays from Southsea seafront. The route is marked on the pavement, and is lined by distinctive blue street lanterns.
There are a number of miniature golf courses, a skateboard park and public grass and clay tennis courts. During winter 2008 three beach volleyball courts were added to these attractions.
The D-Day museum (which holds the Overlord embroidery) is located on the seafront in Southsea, very close to Southsea castle.
At the end of Palmerston Road where it joins the Ladies Mile a plaque on a house records that it was once the home of Fred Jane, the creator of the standard naval reference book Jane’s Fighting Ships.
Cumberland House is a natural history museum, butterfly house and aquarium located close to Canoe Lake just off Southsea seafront.
The Blue Reef Aquarium is also situated on the seafront.
Throughout the summer, there are regular open air concerts and events at the bandstand and on Castle Field.
Just off the seafront is Southsea Model Village which is a 1/12 scale model village with forty miniature buildings, houses, forts, castles and a miniature railway. It was opened in 1956 on the site of a Victorian fort. Another part of the fort has been converted into Southsea Rose Garden.
Canoe Lake is the last remnant of an area of marsh and open water known as the Great Morass, drained in 1886, on which much of Southsea now sits. The lake is topped up from the sea by opening a sluice at high tide. Crabs and fish find their way in, and attract children fishing equipped with a piece of bacon on a string. Recently other marine wildlife have also been spotted such as Moon jellyfish and apparently even flounder.
When undisturbed there are regularly swan and mallard, with less frequent visits from tufted duck, mediterranean gull,cormorant, little grebe and occasionally a lone black swan. In summer pedalos can be rented on the lake.
Since 2006 Canoe Lake has been used as a venue for the annual Lake of Lights Memorial Service. This happens in December where thousands of lights are floated on the lake to commemorate loved ones in the local community who have been lost to cancer.
Towards the eastern end of the seafront is the Royal Marines Museum. Based in the lavishly decorated former Officers’ Mess of Eastney Barracks (built in the 1860s for the Royal Marine Artillery), the Museum includes The Making of the Royal Marines Commando exhibition, opened in 2008, and a refurbished Medal Room with over 8,000 medals earned by Royal Marines – including all 10 Victoria Crosses won by them.
The Kings Theatre, situated in Albert Road, is a venue that hosts a variety of performances, including productions by the local amateur group the Southsea Shakespeare Actors.
A recently created attraction has been the now annual "Love Albert Road Day" which is held along one of Southsea’s main roads. The event features live music, street art and theatre, stalls, food from around the world, an outdoor cinema, competitions and skate demos. All the businesses from the road remain open for the day.
This event was first held in 2007 when it was expected 2,000 visitors would attend and 20,000 turned up on the day. The second "Love Albert Road Day" was held on 28 September 2008 when 40,000 visitors attended.
Text from Wikipedia
Posted in Advertising, Design, Food & drinks, Illustration, Posters, tagged Beer, Beer poster on August 26, 2014| Leave a Comment »
So, I’ve gotten a little fascinated by these slide show galleries on WordPrees.
Learn to live with it 😀
Posted in Design, Retro technology, The fifties, tagged 1951, Electrolux, Toaster on August 21, 2014| 2 Comments »
Advertising for the classic Behrens toaster. 1951. Firmanarchiv Electrolux
Image and text found at DesignIsFine
Posted in Design, Retro technology, tagged E. K. Cole Ltd, Old radios, Radio Ekco AD 65, Viktoria and Albert Museum, Wells Coates on August 17, 2014| 9 Comments »
Wells Coates, Radio Eco AD 65, 1932/34. E. K. Cole Ltd. England.
© Viktoria and Albert Museum
Image found at I live in the first trailer in the park…
Posted in Design, Games, The thirties, Toys, tagged Board Games, Charles B Darrow, Franklin Mint, Monopoly, Patent prints on August 12, 2014| 6 Comments »
Patent print for a board game apparatus called Monopoly filed August 31, 1935. Sheet 1 of 7. Inventor Charles B Darrow.
I’m a real shark at Monopoly, no one wants to play it with me anymore even though I’ve got a luxury version from Franklin Mint – Ted 😦
Patent print from etsy
Posted in Design, Holidays, Illustration, Postcards, Traveling, tagged Queen’s Park Hotel, Trinidad on July 18, 2014| Leave a Comment »
Posted in Article, Design, Motorcycles, Transportation, Traveling, tagged Arlen Ness, Art deco motorcycles on July 12, 2014| 5 Comments »
If Ettore Bugatti had been diverted away from car design and into motorcycles this is almost certainly what he would have built. This remarkable art deco motorcycle was designed and built by master bike builder Arlen Ness, surprisingly there isn’t much information available on this jaw-dropping two-wheeler, the Arlen Ness website is down and emails to the company have gone unanswered, Wikipedia hasn’t been much help and Google throws up relatively useless links when searching for “Arlen Ness Smoothness” and other variations thereof.
What we do know is that Arlen Ness is currently based in Dublin, California and they have a bike museum featuring 40+ bikes, including the Smoothness and a number of other remarkable customs including a jet-powered bike creatively named “Mach Ness”. Arlen and his son also appeared on an episode of “The Great Biker Build Off” in 2004, a competition which is son Cory went on to win.
Micheal Lichter wrote a book about Arlen back in 2005 that features the Smoothness bike as well as some of the more famous builds to come out of his workshop, it’s available on Amazon here. The photo’s above and below are the work of Micheal and feature heavily throughout the book.
If you know more about this bike shoot us an email (editor@silodrome.com), we’d love to update with further information about it. In the meantime hit the link to Arlen’s website here, hopefully it’ll go back up.
Images and text from Silodrome
Posted in Design, Facts, Literature, tagged Big books, World's largest books on July 11, 2014| 14 Comments »
If you love books as a physical object, just imagine burying your nose between the pages of these beauties, massive atlases, photobooks, and tributes to the written word.
See the rest of the books HERE
Posted in Design, Humour, tagged Ministry of Silly Walks, Watches, Wrist watches on May 24, 2014| 4 Comments »
I haven’t worn a wrist watch for nearly thirty years, not any sort of watch for that matter, but if I could get hold of one of these I might consider starting up again – Ted
Posted in Advertising, Advertisments, Design, Illustration, The fifties, The forties, tagged 1940s ads, 1950s ads on May 9, 2014| 2 Comments »
New Year’s Day 1940 was one of the bleakest in England’s history. In 1938 Prime Minister Chamberlain’s efforts to preserve ‘peace with honour’, which split the country politically, had at least gained Britain time to be better prepared for the inevitable showdown with Hitler. In 1939 Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy controlled most of Europe; and Hitler, on his way to grabbing the rest of it, marched into Poland-which was one goose step too far.
Still relatively unarmed, England, joined by France, declared war on Germany, and with a stiff upper lip London prepared to resist the beating Hitler promised to give it from the air. Before the sirens began to wail, Churchill was in command, and through the fears and perils following the fall of France and the evacuation at Dunkirk he led England through its ‘finest hour’, the Battle of Britain, to victory and the German surrender on May 8, 1945.
The course of war had changed radically in 1941 when Hitler invaded Russia and Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. America’s supporting role as ‘the arsenal of democracy’ immediately changed; her answer was no longer just ‘production’ (page 157) but war. In 1944, as President Roosevelt’s unprecedented third term drew to a close, F. D. R. announced he would run for a fourth. But two months after conferring with Churchill and Stalin at Yalta on ways to end the war, he died on April 12, 1945, and was succeeded by Harry S Truman. In August, when Japan refused to surrender, A-bombs were dropped on civilians on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and a stunned and horrified world prayed that nothing like it would ever happen again. The basic power of the universe had been harnessed, and the Age of the Atom had begun.
The war had occupied half the decade, and in July 1945, Churchill’s Conservatives were defeated by Clement Arlee’s Labour Party, which began implementing its ‘welfare state’ promises by nationalizing the Bank of England, the railways, the coal, steel, and gas industries, and the airlines, which now advertised regular passenger service across oceans as well as continents. Free medical care soon followed, as did government patronage of the arts. Meanwhile a tired, impoverished country tidied up its wartom streets and tended to its bomb-damaged monuments. America’s funds for rebuilding a strong democratic Europe helped, and when the pound was devalued, Britain’s exports perked up.
In America it became a Trumanism to say that the New Deal, had become a Fair Deal, especially for the ten million war veterans who, returning to civilian life, were aided by government services, loans and subsidized education. Wives and sweethearts had wartime savings to spend and tired of being a uniformed WAC, WAVE, WREN, or ‘Rosie the Riveter’, took happily to the Christian Dior inspired New Look , a last love affair with elegance before fashion got the ‘sack’.
Pin-ups of Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, and the Petty Girl were left behind as servicemen came home to the real thing. Marriage and babies added to the general postwar boom, and the bobby-soxer baby-sitter became a permanent institution. The latest teenage croon king was Frank Sinatra, rivaled only by Bing Crosby, whose singing of Irving Berlin’s ‘White Christmas’ had already snowballed him to fame.
It was in 1943 that Broadway woke to ‘Oh, What a Beautiful Morning’ as Oklahoma!, a new kind of musical comedy, opened at the St. James. Out had gone the high-kicking chorus line and in had danced Agnes de Mille. Ballet sequences, like the songs, had become an integral part of the play. After the death of Lorenz Hart, Richard Rodgers teamed with Oscar Hammerstein, and the two continued to collaborate on a string of rousing successes, including South Pacific with Enzio Pinza and Mary Martin, The King and I, and, in 1959, The Sound of Music. Meanwhile, in 1956, Alan J. Lerner and Frederick Loewe had set Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion to music and made 
history with Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews in My Fair Lady and again in the 1964 film version with Audrey Hepburn in the role of Eliza.
The population explosion saw the masses spreading outward from the cities. Rows and rows of bungalow-type ranch houses were built for young families, and retirement communities for the old. As developers felled trees, a new kind of forest sprouted on rooftops, the antennae of TVs. With the popularity of television, a wincing movie industry saw the dosing of hundreds of movie houses, but producers; by making full use of new processes, the new wide screen, colour, and box-office stars like Bette Davis, Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Gary Cooper, Katharine Hepburn, Bob Hope, Danny Kaye, and Marilyn Monroe, who became the sex-symbol legend of the fifties, kept it alive if not always kicking. The industry also made money by producing for television as well as renting out old films.
Book publishers also feared the leisure-time competition of television, but name novelists like James A Michener, Frank Yerby, Ernest Hemingway, Daphne DuMaurier kept selling, as did Lloyd C. Douglas, Thomas Wolfe, William Faulkner, and Thomas Costain. Paperbacks were also highly profitable.
In keeping with the times, advertising changed from the punchy, patriotic war ad to lightness and delicacy, as typified in the work of Salvador Dali, Raoul Duty, and Rene Gruau. Distinguished avant garde work was being done by George Giusti for Fortune and Holiday; by Paul Rand, Joseph Binder, Ashley Havinden, and F. H. K Henrion. Popular magazine-type illustration was well represented in the designs of artists like Jon Whitcomb, Whitney Darrow, Peter Hawley, Tom Hall, Jack Welch, and Norman Rockwell; and humour, never long absent in advertising, in the drawings of Fougasse, Raymond Tooby, Ronald Searle, Peter Amo, Richard Taylor, Robert Day, William Steig, and James Thurber. Photographers much in the fore included Cecil Beaton, Horst, Irving Penn, Francesco Scavullo, Yousuf Karsh,john Rawlings, and Leslie Gill-all represented in the following pages.
The fifties, the decade of The Affluent Society’, in which author John Kenneth Galbraith called attention to the problems of abundance, saw war-hero Dwight 
Eisenhower, the advocate of ‘fiscal responsibility’, President of the United States for all but two years of it.
In England Churchill and the Conservatives came back in power they ear of the ‘Festival of Britain’, which celebrated the hundredth anniversary of the Great Exhibition of 1851. A year later the sadness at the death of King George VI was replaced by the joy of a new coronation and a young Queen Elizabeth II. In 1956 another royal affair found Grace Kelly, recently opposite James Stewart in Hitchcock’s Rear Window and with Cary Grant on the Riviera filming To Catch a Thief, returning to Monaco to become Princess Grace. The fifties was also the time of TV quiz shows like ‘What’s My line?’ and for little boys to be coon-capped Crocketts or Boones.
Then suddenly, as parents might be listening to Julie Andrews singing ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ or a smooth Harry Belafonte or Perry Como, a new kind of sound arose from across the Tennessee hills, Elvis Presley with his electric guitar, singing ‘Don’t Be Cruel’. The rock’n’roll heat wave coincided with the ‘beat’ movement fanning east out of San Francisco. Sultry, leather-jacketed youths living in pads and on pot hung around the streets, identifying with characters such as The Wild One in Marlon Brando’s film and the moody and intense Rebel Without a Cause in James Dean’s; with Allen Ginsberg’s ‘Howl’, John Osborne’s Look Back in Anger, and jack Kerouac’s On the Road. These were the first rumblings of the cultural earthquake that shook the sixties.
Posted in Design, tagged Dress codes, Fashion design, Ties on April 28, 2014| 2 Comments »
Sometimes it strikes me, I’m a grown man, maybe it’s time to start to dress properly. Wear a suit, wear a tie. And then it strikes me, ties are the most stupid piece of clothing ever designed and I forget the whole thing a stick to Levi’s and leather – Sorry fashion people, fuck you – Ted
Posted in Advertising, Advertisments, Article, Design, Illustration, Photography, The forties, The thirties, The twenties, tagged Advertising Artwork on April 27, 2014| 2 Comments »
he The Great War was followed by two years of feverish prosperity, then suddenly business slumped, unemployment rose, and strikes broke out. Lloyd George, who with Woodrow Wilson and Georges Clemenceau witnessed the signing of the Peace Treaty at Versailles on June 28, 1919, remained England’s Prime Minister in 1920. Business was in trouble. The war had upset the world’s economy, and the defeated nations were without money. England alone had lost a million men, and the young, sickened by the results of a ‘senseless war’, closed their eyes to the past and were determined to have a good time. ‘I Want to Be Happy’ and ‘Do Do Do’ were in tune with the times. Jazz-straight, Gershwin, or Paul Whiteman’s symphonic jazz-was all the young wanted to listen to, and with Gramophones, Victrolas, and now the radio as well, they so easily could.
A popular spokesman for the new age was F. Scott Fitzgerald, who entered wholeheartedly into what he described as ‘America’s greatest and giddiest spree in history’. In 1925 his third novel, The Great Gatsby, was a best-seller; so, that year, were Aldous Huxley’s Those Barren Leaves, Anita Loos’ Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, and Sinclair Lewis’s Arrowsmith.
In celebration of the emancipation of women Paris tossed the corset to the winds and introduced the boyish, clothespin silhouette, with short skirts, bobbed hair, plucked eyebrows, and lips crimsoned to a cupid’s bow. What a witty cleric called ‘a pandemonium of powder, a riot of rouge, and moral anarchy of dress’ was, when accompanied by the magnetism of a Clara Bow, what novelist Elinor Glyn called It. Long earrings were the height of fashion; so were long cigarette holders and even longer necklaces.
Fancy dress balls had their enthusiasts, but instead of Venus, Cleopatra, or Marie Antoinette being circled round and round to a waltz by Strauss, the ladies of history were now happily backed around the room to a fox-trot, turned smartly sideways to dip into a tango, or let loose to take, as an evangelical follower of Aimee Semple McPherson said, ‘the first and easiest step to hell’, doing the Charleston or Black Bottom.
The golden-haired’ boys of business were the salesman and the ad man. With more styles of everything from cars to cosmetics, super 
salesmanship and clever advertising were the only ways to beat the competition. For example, the personal endorsement of a soap or cosmetic by a famous beauty, implying that you too could look as terrific as, say, lady Diana Manners (page 115), was a new and highly successful sales pitch.
The growing success of motion pictures profited other industries besides Hollywood. Millions were spent building chains of ‘movie palaces’, and more millions advertising ‘coming attractions’-Douglas Fairbanks in The Thief of Bagdad, for example, or Charlie Chaplin in The Kid, or a new film with the great Garbo, the most glamorous of all ‘silent’ stars to triumph equally in sound.
The first talkie, The Jazz Singer, was filmed in 1927, a good year for both jazz and musical comedy. A Connecticut Yankee and Good News! were big successes. So were Fred and Adele Astaire in Funny Face, tap-dancing to Gershwin’s ‘S’wonderful’-with Fray and Braggiotti at the orchestra’s two grand pianos-a sensation no one who experienced it could ever forget. In 1930 the Astaires were at it again in The Band Wagon.
The year 1927 also became a historic one in the air as Charles Lindbergh made the first solo transatlantic flight. Then in 1928 the Germans sent the Graf Zeppelin across the Atlantic, heralding a passenger air service that was to last until the Hindenburg exploded over New Jersey in 1937. While local airplane passenger service was common, transatlantic travel still meant booking on the new Queen Mary, the Normandie, or another great liner and getting a rousing send-off with streamers and jazz band.
The prosperity of the late twenties, in America particularly, where even elevator boys bought stocks on margin, hoping to become Rockefellers overnight, ended with the Wall Street Crash of 1929. The ensuing Great Depression in America, and the less violent sl ump in England, where James Ramsay MacDonald headed a coalition government, brought unemployment problems and breadlines. Paris, as if in mourning for the good old flapper days, lowered ladies’ skirts to half-mast.
In 1932 the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt and his ‘New Deal’ platform led to Social Security, the repeal of Prohibition, 
and a gradual return to prosperity as vast projects like the Works Progress Administration (WPA) got under way.
In advertising, the high standard set by Frank Pick and his London Underground artists inspired England’s big railways to engage fine artists like Frank Taylor. The work of Tom Purvis, Austin Cooper, Francis Marshall, and Ashley Havinden was to be seen everywhere. Two of the most successful campaigns ever brought fun to the sombre thirties: ‘That’s Shell-That Was’ by poster artist John Gilroy, and ‘My Goodness, My Guinness’ by John Reynolds. In America the realistic style of Willy Pogany, Norman Rockwell, T. M. Cleland, and J. C. Leyendecker remained popular, while Vienna’s Joseph Binder introduced to America an exciting new concept of poster design, In Europe A M. Cassandre became as great an influence on the art of the poster as McKnight Kauffer. Important photographers entering the increasingly competitive advertising field included Edward Steichen, Herbert Matter, and Martin Munkacsi. All the above are represented in the following illustrations.
On the darker side, the early thirties saw the growing strength of Hitler and Mussolini, and Spain’s civil war. The turbulent times found more people reading novels and going to the movies. The best-selling novel of the thirties was Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With the Wind, which in 1939 became one of the most successful films ever, with Clark Gable as Rhett and Vivien Leigh as Scarlett, although the New York critics gave an even higher ‘year’s best’ rating to Wuthering Heights, with Laurence Olivier and Merle Oberon.
On stage in London Charles B. Cochran was producing sophisticated revues at the Pavilion in Piccadilly Circus. John Gielgud became the greatest Hamlet, the Lunts the most popular husband-and-wife stage team. In 1934 Cole Porter wrote Anything Goes. Noel Coward was in his heyday: after Bitter Sweet came his Private Lives with Gertrude 
Lawrence as Amanda. J. B. Priestley was writing a new play almost every year. Rudolf Besier’s The Barretts of Wimpole Street starred Gwen Ffrangcon-Davies in London and Katharine Cornell in New York. Eugene O’Neill followed Mourning Becomes Electra with Ah! Wilderness, and Maxwell Anderson’s play Mary of Scotland saw Helen Hayes as Mary onstage and Katharine Hepburn in the same role in the 1936 film.
Threats of war continued to multiply, but even Hitler took second place in the headlines as England’s royal drama began to unfold. After George V died, in January 1936, Edward VIII became King, but before the year was out he had abdicated to marry the twice-divorced Wallis Simpson of Baltimore.
Edward’s brother, George VI, was crowned in 1937, and two years later, he and his Queen Elizabeth became the first reigning English monarchs to see the USA enjoying hot dogs with the Roosevelts and visiting the New York World’s Fair. Later that year England was again at war with Germany.
Text from “The Art of ADVERTISING” by Bryan Holme
Posted in Design, DIY project, Illustration, tagged Do-it-yourself projects, Furniture, Shelfs, Woodwork plans on April 24, 2014| 2 Comments »
As I mentioned my own woodwork plans are only in pdf format as I prefer to check my plans on a flat screen hooked up to one of my laptops rather than on a lot of loose drawings on paper. You’ll find the plans for the shelf HERE
Posted in Design, The twenties, Transportation, Traveling, tagged Norman Bel Geddes, Streamline designs on April 9, 2014| 2 Comments »
Norman Bel Geddes (1893-1958) was one of the most influential designers of the early 20th Century. Trained as a theatrical designer, he was the first to apply the principals of aerodynamics to industrial design, creating the style we now know was "Streamline Moderne."
Having designed everything from household appliances to transcontinental trains, Bel Geddes turned his sights to the skies, creating in 1929 one of the most ambitious commercial airliner concepts ever put to paper: A nine-story flying amphibious behemoth dubbed simply "Airliner #4." Inspired by the Dornier DO-X flying boat, the aircraft — designed in partnership with Dr. Otto Koller — would sleep 606 passengers in cruise liner-like comfort. With a wingspan of 525 feet, the plane would have been twice the size of a modern-day Boeing 747 Jumbo Jet.
Bel Geddes’ plans were the fly his plane between Chicago and London via the St. Lawrence Seaway with refueling done in flight over Canada. Although he was purportedly in negotiations in a syndicate of Chicago businessmen to fund the project, it never materialized.
Although he never saw this dream take flight, Bel Geddes went on to gain fame of the designer of General Motors’ celebrated "Highways & Horizons" exhibit — better known as "Futurama" — at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.
Text from FantasticPlastic
Retrorambling 