Lothar Meggendorfer's International Circus

       So, it has been a while and I thought I should come back to this blog with something truly beautiful and amazing! I was gifted this pop up book by a family friend who is a self confessed hoarder of amazing things. Since she knows I love the circus this was the perfect present for me. 
       The book she gave me is a reproduction pop up book which was printed in 1979, the original production of this book was printed in 1887! The book is a panoramic scene, the "book" folds out to create a circus tent with a different act in each section. The Frankfurter Journal reviewed the book in 1887 calling it:

"the most spectacular of Meggendorfer's surprises... a book that is certain to astound and delight everyone"

  

In the year we are celebrating 250 years of circus, it is great to go back and look at images of the original circus with it's classic big top. 

The below images show some of the amazing and humorous illustration, with captions from the book. Enjoy! 

"Miss Ella rides her stately horse while the clowns have trouble riding their Donkey."

"Mr Funtolo performs on his horse as he leaps over a flaming gate."

"The Bravo family show their graceful skill riding bareback on two horses"

"The sultans courier straddles his galloping horses"

"Clara Springel leaps and somersaults through a hoop"

 

Saal Digital Photo Book Review

      I recently had the chance to create my own Photo Book from Saal Digital in exchange for an honest review. I was really excited for this chance, as a photographer I have a huge backlog of photos which may end up on Flickr or Facebook but never usually make it into print! I did recently get some 6x4" prints from Snapfish on an offer but the quality was just not comparable to what I see on screen! 

      I used this as an excuse to make a kind of portfolio for the images I have taken over the past year. I have been taking some online Photography courses which you can read about in previous posts, this has really improved the quality of my recent work and I wanted to see that in print. I decided to go for a wraparound cover in matte padded finish. This image taken of a lake near the hoover dam is one of my favourites with all the colours and clouds and I think it worked well.

       You don't have to have the padded cover, it is an extra, but it gives the book a nice, luxury feel. 

       For the inside I chose matte lustre finish on the paper as I tend to prefer this over gloss. The book also has flat binding so it lies perfectly flat as you turn the pages, this is another nice touch which allows your prints to not get lost in the gutter in the centre.

       The possibilities for layouts are endless in these books! They have all sorts of collage templates with the option to have many photos per page. I kept it simple with each double spread having 2-4 photos, the flat binding meant I could have photos across the centre still perfectly viewable as shown below. 

      The colour representation is really beautiful. I have a retina screen on my mac which can show every flaw in an image, but also gives great definition for sharpness versus my old screen, these prints definitely do the images justice!

       A couple of things to be careful of:

Check image size - The book creator does tell you if your images are big enough, the cover image was "good" rather than "great" in their terms which meant it wasn't pixellated but also wasn't quite as crisp as the others due to it being stretched to cover the front and back! 

Check print proofs - The below images of jewellery are both meant to be on black slate, the right image is somehow a really pale grey which wasn't how the file looked when I saved it! No idea still how that happened but make sure you double check everything before sending to print.

       Overall I would absolutely recommend Saal Digital for Photo Books, I may even try them for art prints too as they have a lot of other services on their website! I have bought photo books before as gifts, and while the printing is generally ok, they don't get even close to this one! The above book in A4 is around £44 with postage for I think a 29 page book. These are great for portfolios, wedding photos, really nice family albums and would make a very special gift for someone. 

Vintage Letterpress Goodness

I have always had a love for the craftsmanship that goes into old things. I have nothing against new and contemporary design, but I think there is something about things which have been around for a long time that gets me intrigued! 

My grandfather Frank Maskell worked as a typesetter, I always remember him noticing mistakes in newspapers after all the years he had spent proof reading. I also remember them having type cases on their walls for many years which held various nik-naks along with some beautiful pieces of lead and wooden type.

I never really appreciated type until I was half way through my degree. Plymouth has one of the biggest collections of lead type in the country, and while I only had a couple of sessions in that room I loved all the mechanics which went into making even just a few words of type! 

I have inherited some beautiful things from my grandparents, I am hoping to do a few blog posts to share them but this one starts with type. More specifically - vintage font books, I love the smooth paper and slightly faded pages in these. I also love the huge variety of fonts which you can flick through for inspiration.

Love these decorative borders!

20 Ways To Draw A Tree

I got this book for christmas and rediscovered it recently when clearing out my book shelf. It is a sketchbook with a difference, combining space for drawing with a huge number of drawings for inspiration. 

The front cover is made of matte texturised paper which makes me feel artsy for a start.

Each page consists of a different "thing" to be drawn from nature, there is a huge range from acorns to snowflakes, stars, mushrooms and feathers. 

They are all laid out slightly differently but the pages always have around 20 drawings of each thing, and space for you to add your own drawings. 

This is a great book for people who like drawing nature. I especially like it as pattern designers like me can use these small drawings as the basis for repeat patterns. 

Here are some ferns I drew on one page - it does feel strange being "allowed" to draw in this book.

The illustrator Eloise Renouf has put some truly beautiful artwork in this book with a wide variety of different colours, textures and styles to really get you inspired and motivated to draw. Even if you aren't into drawing it is a gorgeous book to own and have a flick through.

You can check out Eloise's website here and this book can be purchases from amazon here along with a number of other "20 ways to draw" books by different artists. What do you guys think of this book? Any other sketchbooks you can recommend?

Moomin Adventures Book Review

I have wanted to write a review of these books for ages, well, not even so much a review more just to show them off because I think they are beautiful! 

My mum bought a set of these for christmas presents but I liked them so much I got her to order me a set, you can buy them here for the absolutely stupid price of £4.99 for 3 books!

This set is based on the original stories and illustrations by Tove Jansson, they have been simplified for younger children and modernised with bright, fresh colour palettes. 

Before you even get to the first page the endpapers are absolutely beautiful!

I love the typography in the first couple of pages:

Each page has a different main colour which makes them very bright and exciting, with each illustration looking very different from the next. 

I love the style of mark making used with lots of small lines and dots creating patterns and depth within the drawings. They have done a great job of keeping the artwork in the traditional style whilst using colour to make it more modern and appealing to young children.

So awesome! What do you guys think? Do you like the way colour is used or do you prefer the more traditional style?