BAGDContext CSM

My new issue of eye, the international review of graphic design, arrived today. Imagine my surprise and delight to discover this amazing gatefold of a Wrigley billboard design by Otis and Dorothy Shepard from 1937…the airbrush and streamlining of the train work brilliantly together to create a very dramatic effect.

Mid-century American poster design seems to have been directed towards these large-scale billboard formats. I know there are a couple of these kinds of design by A M Cassandre, the Russian/French poster genius, from when he worked in the USA.

There’s a new book about the Shepards…forgotten masters of American graphic design…Brilliant.

This is the cover from the new eye, No89…Amazingly, I have a complete run of this magazine. I’ve even written for it a few times. I’m proud to be associated with this publication, as both subscriber and contributor. Long may they continue.

My friend and colleague, Dave Hendley, sent this over…lovely and atmospheric. I especially like the curve of the rails and the light on them. The smoke and telegraph wires add vertical drama too.

Here’s a poster image of BRs famous new identity from the mid1960s…it still looks pretty good now. The identities associated with the privatisation of the railway have been pretty poor – except that they provide plenty of opportunity for corporate identity designers!

This marks the end of a certain kind of design that emerged after WW2. This used materials and technology to provide solutions…but, within the context of a consumer-driven economy, it was difficult to balance design sophistication with planned obsolescence. Once the BR identity was established, there was nowhere to go with it. It became something that lay across the train tracks.

There’s a copy of the original identity manual on display in the studio just now.

Thought for the day

Maybe the world is better when it is filled with ephemeral junk…or the prison of perfection.

Here’s a photograph by Walker Evans. It shows a small railway station, out in the sticks.

Evans was a photographer associated with the Farm Security Administration. During the 1930s, the FSA documented the lives of ordinary Americans working in the agricultural sector.

I recently posted a cover design, with box-car, from the US business magazine, Fortune. Here are some more railway themed covers…

Fortune was a remarkable publication. It was expertly art-directed and always had great cover designs. Often, these designs were by modernist graphic designers…from America and Europe.

Quite apart from the intrinsic interest of railway images; these covers chart a progression from illustration through to graphic design, via commercial art and photography.

That’s the history of our discipline in one post!

I’ve been investigating track control systems for railways…there’s a logic of safety and performance that is compelling.

I found a terrific US based web-resource about the New York Central Railroad. The site describes the trains, yards, people and communities of the railroad through photographs.

Great stuff!

We were watching Michael Portillo’s continental railway adventure in the middle-east. There was a sequence filmed at the railway museum…including this tender, with lovely bold signage…including my initials.

The letters and numbers are beautifully painted and the right scale for the tender. They add a lot of drama to the machine. Imagine it, moving. Brilliant!

Here’s another great night-time colour transparency by Jack Deleno…

Here’s the biographical note from Deleno’s wiki entry…

Jack Deleno was born in the Ukraine. His parents moved their family to the USA in 1923. Betwen 1924 and 1932 he studied graphic arts, photography and music. After being awarded an art scholarship, he progressed to the Pennsylvania Institute of Fine Arts and studied illustration and music. Deleno was awarded a Carson Scholarship and travelled to Europe. The trip was an opportunity for Deleno to purchase a camera. Thereafter, he became increasingly interested in photography.

After graduating, Deleno suggested a photographic project to the Federal Art Programe – a study of boot-leg miners in Pennsylvania. Deleno sent some pictures to Roy Stryker, and applied for a job at the Farm Security Administration Photographic Programme (FSA). At the FSA, Deleno worked alongside Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans…In 1943, he moved to the Office of War Information.

The Library of Congress holds Deleno’s archive. This includes many terrific images of the US railways and its workers.

Click on the image, below; it’s panoramic…