Tag: book illustration

Designer Desire: Joe McLaren

Montage of Joe McLaren illustrations

Joe McLaren is a British book and magazine illustrator. He graduated from (my alma mater) the University of Brighton in 2003 and currently lives & works in Rochester, Kent.

He taught the Foundation Illustration course at Central Saint Martins, and his client list includes Penguin, Faber, Random House, Orion, Folio, Portobello, Monocle, John Murray, Oxford, Vintage, The Times, The Irish Times, The Guardian and The Financial Times.

In an interview with The Gentle Author of Spitalfields Life (for whom he created their logo), McLaren explains:

I have been influenced by Edward Bawden and he was influenced by heraldry. Everything I do is in a flat space, so it doesn’t matter where the light’s coming from, you are portraying the thing itself.

As well as the book and magazine illustrations, I’ve found prints and cotton bags decorated with his beautiful illustrations available for sale at Cornwall-based Nancarrow Farm shop.

Portrait of Joe McLaren at Rochester Castlecredit

All image credits: Joe McLaren ©

Designer Desire: Barbara Cooney

Montage of of Barbara Cooney book covers and illustrations

Born in New York, Barbara Cooney (1917-2000) was a prolific children’s book author and illustrator. She wrote and illustrated over a dozen of her own titles and almost a hundred for other writers.

She collaborated with a range of other children’s authors, including Margaret Wise Brown, Jane Goodsell, Elinor Lander Horwitz, Phyllis Krasilovsky, Felix Salten, Ruth Crawford Seeger and the poet, Donald Hall.

King of Wreck Island was the first book Cooney both wrote and illustrated in 1941. In 1959, she won the Caldecott Medal for Chanticleer and the Fox (at the top of the montage above) – an adaptation of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. She won the award once again in 1980 with Ox-Cart Man.

Of all the books I have done, ‘Miss Rumphius,’ ‘Island Boy,’ and ‘Hattie and the Wild Waves,’ are the closest to my heart. These three are as near as I ever will come to an autobiography.

Many of the books she has written and/or illustrated are available on Etsy and Amazon – both in the UK and USA.

In 1996, the 12th of December was declared Barbara Cooney Day in her adopted state of Maine.

Portrait of Barbara Cooneycredit

Additional image credits:

Books my kid loves | Pinterest

Designer Desire: Charles Tunnicliffe

, Montage of Charles Tunnicliffe illustrations | H is for Home

We’ve been spending hours & hours in the garden this past week; it’s been warm and sunny and lots of fledglings and their protective parents have been flocking to our feeders. We’ve been identifying the species and their calls; it got us thinking about the illustrations of Charles Tunnicliffe.

Charles Frederick Tunnicliffe (1901-1979) was one of the UK’s best known and loved wildlife artists. Originally from Langley near Macclesfield, where he grew up on a farm, he won a scholarship to attend the Royal College of Art. From the 1940s, for the last 35 years of his life, he worked from his studio in his home, Shorelands, located in Malltraeth, Anglesey.

We know him best as the illustrator of the “What to look for in…” series of Ladybird nature-themed children’s books. We have the full set – Spring, Summer, Autumn and Winter – in our personal collection. Also in our library by him is Shorelands Summer Diary (1952) and A Sketchbook of Birds (1979).

As well as 250+ books, he illustrated a number of the RSPB member magazines. In 1995, at a Sotheby’s auction, 114 of the original artworks were sold by the charity. It raised £210,000; the most expensive lot, an illustration of a partridge, sold for £6,440.

There are a number of books by and about him available on Amazon and an array of his prints (and a couple of limited editions) for sale on eBay and Etsy.

Three portraits of Charles Tunnicliffecredits (L, C, R)

Additional image credits:

ArtUK

Designer Desire: Fernand Nathan

Montage of vintage children's educational games and books

At first, we thought that Fernand Nathan was an individual… but we could find no information about, or image of, the man. Then we realised that Fernand Nathan is actually the publisher. Perhaps a bit like the Ladybird books, the authors and illustrators were often of secondary consideration.

Lise Marin was one of the few book illustrators that was named; she was responsible for the imagery for the ‘Ploum and Ploumette’, early ‘Daniel and Valérie’ characters and ‘Je joue…’ series.

As well as books, Fernand Nathan produced other educational toys and games such as dominoes, rubber stamp kits, jigsaws, crosswords, card games and posters. We have one of their games, Loto du Marché for sale in our shop at the moment.

Some of the works remind us of another French illustration duo of the era that we love, Lefor Openo.

Image credits:

eBay | Etsy