Here’s some Puffin books I scanned so I could stick the pictures in my art college diary.
Puffin annual from the 1960s. I mainly bought it for the cover, but it’s actually full of interesting articles.
Such as the making of Captain Pugwash. I never realised it wasn’t made by stop motion, but by three people wiggling the bits of cardboard in real-time along with the soundtrack via tabs on the back of the artwork.
Puffin by Design book I got for my birthday. The late 50s-early 70s designs in the book are amazing, but they get really tacky in the 80s, and even the recent stuff is things like “Magic Kitten Seaside Mystery” with crappy computer drawn glow on everything (glow shading is one of my pet design hates). The author makes rude comments about the 80s and 90s covers, but restrains from commenting about the current ones.
You can do a lot with flat planes of colour. Sometimes advances in printing work against quality of design.
This book’s great. It’s organised into “The Sea Itself”, “Creatures of Sea, Land and Sky”, “On the Beach”, “Findings and Keepings”, “I Do Like to be beside the Seaside”, “Harbour and Island, Cape and Cliff”, “Fishing and Fisherfolk”, “A Life on the Ocean Wave”, “Vessels”, “Seamen All”, “In Deep”, “Sea-Changes”, “Lovers False and Lovers True”, “Dreamers, Solitaries and Survivors”, “Shipwreck, Storm and Disaster”, “Wreckers, Invaders, Pirates and Prisoners”, “Battles and Engagements” and “Voyagings, Departures and Homecomings”; which is almost as good as a poem itself. It’s got everything from Homer to Philip Larkin and has really nice illustrations at the start of each category.
This is great looking stuff! I have a lot of fond memories of the Puffin books from growing up, and would be fascinated to look through the book on the history of the cover design.
We had lots of the 60s and 70s editions at my junior school, and the covers always looked so lively.
I had that annual, once upon a time! I was an almost founder member of the Puffin Club (I joined with the second issue of Puffin Post). I still have my certificates from Fat Puffin for winning competitions and my signed photo from Richard Carpenter, of “The Ghosts of Motely Hall” that I won!
I think you should frame them and put them up on the wall!
One of my friends won a sketchbook from Tony Hart's gallery. She's still too scared to draw in it to this day.
I've been tempted recently to get a second hand copy of that Free Stuff for Kids book that schools always had, and send some SAEs off to some listings and see what happens.