Category Archives: Uncategorized

Here’s a picture of a wonderful machine. It’s a converted pick-up truck that can be driven along the thousands of miles of abandoned railway track in Mexico. It is a kind of spaceship that explores distant, now lost (disconnected), worlds … Continue reading →

This is a small notebook of drawings from the train window approaching Waterloo. The image, book and train all synchronised…well done BAGD graduating student, Maciej Rackiewicz.

The World Cup in Brazil reminds us of how football became the global game – it travelled by train! More accurately, it travelled with the engineers that built the railway system in Latin America. For example, the introduction of football … Continue reading →

I found this at home. It’s a sugar lump with a promotional wrapper for the Russian railway. We travelled on this train in the 1980s. But, the wrapper looks as though it was designed earlier than that. I remember that … Continue reading →

Here is a text I’ve been working on… How to Design a Railway Poster –  by combining Power, Economy and Sparkle Introduction The artist can be a law unto himself…Not so, the commercial artist Austin Cooper 1938 The question of how … Continue reading →

This is a just post-WW2 version of the French National Railways SNCF logo. These signs, made of inter-twined letters are usually associated with an earlier period of design. Traditionally, this type of sign is called a monogram. One of the … Continue reading →

Here is a great poster from the USA. It’s difficult to do anything really interesting with the classic three-qaurters view from the trackside. Here, there is just enough detail in the radiator, light, and window shapes, to convey the mass of … Continue reading →

I have just found these poster, advertising and cover designs by the American illustrator, Bern Hill. Turns out he’s a bit of a star…. The perspective effects are derived from the experience of looking at model railway layouts I’m sure. … Continue reading →

Here are two pieces from a Wedgwood Travel pattern dinner service, designed by the British artist Eric Ravilious. They were first made during the 1930s. Ravilious was an artist who worked in watercolour and as a wood engraver. These plates … Continue reading →

This fashion shoot for American Vogue by Annie Leibovitz is based on Brief Encounter. I think I know what they were trying for; an emotional intensity…but I’m not sure that worked. More a Film Noir style, I think.