VISUAL COMMUNICATION HISTORY BLOG

The first Christmas catalogue Edward Bawden (1903 - 1989) created for Fortnum's was in 1955. The 1958 catalogue is an extended pun on the word 'cat', and is full of witty and playful drawings. Cats were a passion of his, as they strut, dance, and grin their way through these remarkable pages. Part of his enduring appeal is his combination of modernism and tradition. He always believed that a good piece of design was as valuable as …

A 1957 children’s book illustrated by legendary designer Paul Rand, and written by his then-wife Ann. Read more here: https://www.paulrand.design/writing/books/sparkle-and-spin.html

Ulisse Aldrovandi (11 September 1522 – 4 May 1605) was an Italian naturalist, the moving force behind Bologna's botanical garden, one of the first in Europe. He is usually referred to, especially in older literature, as Aldrovandus; his name in Italian is equally given as Aldroandi. https://peoplepill.com/people/ulisse-aldrovandi/

... is a shiny, well-fed tome that gathers the best cat-coddling articles, essays, short stories, poems, cartoons, covers, and other feats of literature and art from the New Yorker archives. Spanning nearly nine decades, the collection featuring contributions from such celebrated minds as John Updike, Margaret Atwood, James Thurber, Susan Orlean, and even the patron saint of “the other side,” famed dog-lover E. B. White. https://www.brainpicking…

Tigre Milena, aka. Doni Parlanti is a high powered professional in a field completely unrelated to Victorian fairy tales. In her "other" life Tigre is an avatar in the virtual world of Second Life ®, where she shows skills and talents which have nothing whatsoever to do with the demands of her "Real Life" job: Tigre sets up complex scenes (which are actually lived-in locations within her own virtual home), populated with the c…

Found on  Centralasian's wonderful Flickr stream . While this appears to be a contemporary illustration, it still has a great retro feel to it and so I am labeling it accordingly.

A huge selection, everything from biological illustrations to fashion plates: http://www.panteek.com/index.htm

Very nice collection of Anatomical Illustrations, can be accessed from here: http://link.library.utoronto.ca/anatomia/application/index.cfm . The three plates below are from "Traité complet de l'anatomie de l'homme" by Marc Jean Bourgery (1797-1849). The book was published in Paris in 1831-1854. However, this is by no means the only book to be found here: The collection is huge, with ninety-five individual titles represented, …