From Goats To Graphic Design

This is a treat! Buying books online at auction can be a bit of a lottery, but Looking Round London by Helen Carstairs, was the pleasant surprise lurking among a lot bought blind which I collected yesterday.  Published in 1937, it is Carstairs’ only book, and features a series of delightful illustrations of London landmarks and locations. Here is just a small selection of her vibrant images from over 80 years ago.

As far as I can see from Abebooks, Biblio, and the other usual secondhand book sites, there’s not another copy to be had. So keep your eyes peeled at auction, or just buy boxes of books until a copy turns up! I’ll post more images soon, but in the meantime, you can find out a little more about Helen Carstairs in the correspondence here.

A 1963 scheme for the pedestrianisation of Fitzroy Square, as beautifully illustrated by Kenneth Browne. Suffice to say, it didn’t happen quite like this.

The very lovely Café de la Gaieté in Chemery, France, as captured by @pixdar.

Another of Kenneth Browne’s fine illustrations from ‘Traffic In Towns’, a 1963 attempt to solve the problems of urban congestion. A much vaunted idea was the separation of people (and their homes, offices and shops) from the traffic below.

Design for the interior of a library

Route de Bellecombe, Flumet (Savoie). Avril 2018.

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Morning, noon and night? Three different but equally enticing Mont Blanc poster treatments from 1928 by Georges Dorival.

Folkets Hus (1953) in Linköping, Sweden, by Sven Markelius & Bengt Lindroos

Pioneer American Skiers and 1937 Cord by Harry Anderson

The Rhineland (Reichsbahnzentrale fur den Deutschen Reiseverkehr, 1933). German A1 Travel Poster

Northern Lapwing - Vanellus Vanellus

Jungfrau via Felix Vallotton

Size: 14x25 cm

Alexander Pushkin tales on matchbox labels from the 1960s (via)

You can still take a pleasure flight from Elstree, though it costs more than the 1933 price of four bob now.