Friday, August 26, 2011

Cover Curiosities

I've been cleaning out my attic and bookshelves lately and rediscovered some old forgotten books. Some of these gems are silkscreened trade bindings, while most are printed by letterpress which would technically make them cloth stamped bindings. Often they are designed by anonymous artists. My favorite is the book above, which is in lousy shape, sadly. I recall buying it years ago just for the cover design. The title appears to be all hand-lettered, and the copyright page is missing, but the owner boldly signed his name and date of 1917 in blackletter penwork on the endsheets. This was just a few years prior to the the time designer W.A. Dwiggins was credited for coining the term, graphic designer in 1922, which has since displaced the less descriptive label of commercial artist. I'll do my best to post all of these books on Flickr before long, with more information on each. 
Note to self: clean more often.








2 comments:

  1. These are gorgeous. Thanks for posting them.

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  2. how people live in the suburbs...I'd like to read that!

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