One little blog post about two little books.
Today’s Bookmarks post features V&A The Fifties and Pop Patterns
With less than a hundred pages each, they’re small – but perfectly formed.
Each book has an introductory overview of its subject – prominent designers, artistic and social influences etc
Written by Sue Pritchard in The Fifties and by Oriole Cullen in Pop Patterns.
Concise & informed – they’re perfectly scaled to match the books.
The introductions are followed by plenty of illustrated examples…
…all taken from the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Collections.
Each book manages to pack in about 60 of them!
These fantastic designs were used in textiles, wallpapers and home furnishings.
Some of these patterns have actually been re-released of late – Calyx by Lucienne Day for example and Marian Mahler’s Mobiles.
For others, you will have to hunt down vintage examples – not an easy task!
The books also provide lists of further reading if your appetites have been whetted.
Each book comes with an accompanying disc of 70 high resolution digital images of vintage patterns that you can use (with permission if they are to be used commercially).
Once again, both books are available from the H is for Home A-stores:
- UK: The Fifties | Pop Patterns
- US: The Fifties | Pop Pattern
And the whole series can be found on the Hive website.
They’re a good, inexpensive introduction to the subject… highly recommended!
[Many thanks to V & A Publishing for supplying these review copies]
