Designer Desire: Daphne Padden

This week, we’re featuring the wonderful graphic designs of Daphne Padden (1925-2010) in our Designer Desire series.

‘Mr & Mrs Crownfolio’ have been writing about Daphne on their Vintage Poster Blog for almost 2 decades and it’s thanks in the main to them that something is actually known of her. The vast majority of the images in our mosaic have been borrowed from them. She’s highly underrated in their, and our, opinion!

Portrait of Daphne Padden painted by her father, Percy Padden

She has produced work for the likes of The Post Office Savings Bank, P & O, British Railways, BEA, ROSPA and Unilever.

Her designs can be found on travel posters, food packaging and restaurant menus. We’re surprised that she never illustrated children’s books, her style is perfectly suited for that medium.

We’re lucky enough to have this single item of hers in our possession – a bright & bold poster produced for The Post Office Savings Bank advertising their investment accounts.

An archive of her work is held at my alma mater, The University of Brighton although, to date, none of it seems to have been uploaded to their website. Others can be found in the archives of some of the companies she worked for including The Postal Museum and The Marks and Spencer Company Archive.

You can often find a handful of Daphne Padden’s vintage works on eBay. If you get out-bid, quite a few places are currently reproducing some of her designs including Beast in Show, To Dry For, All Posters and Art.com.

If you have any information or examples of her work, please share – we’d love to hear from you.

Image credits

Vintage Poster Blog | Christies

Designer Desire: Lefor Openo

Welcome to our new blog series, ‘Designer Desire’, where we’ll feature one designer per week whose work we love. We’re kicking off with Lefor Openo who we’ve mentioned once or twice before.

Lefor Openo comprised of two French women, Marie-Claire Lefort and Marie-Francine Oppeneau. They met while studying at Lycée Claude-Bernard Paris, and collaborated from 1955 to 1967. They were primarily poster artists; their designs were used extensively by Loterie Nationale (the national lottery of France). They designed posters for Charles de Gaulle – for the 1958 constitutional referendum and again for his 1965 presidential election campaign. They also produced advertising artwork for other organisations and brands such as Electricité de France, Kodak, Singer Sewing Machines. They designed a poster for the 1959 film Babette s’en va-t-en guerre, (Babette goes to War) starring Brigitte Bardot. Apparently, she is the one upon whom they based most of their ‘models’.

As well as posters, very occasionally you’ll come across postcards and tea towels bearing their designs on Etsy and eBay. We’ve also seen evidence of a doll and a couple of pin dishes from the era and we have a tin in our shop which we believe to be one of their designs – we’ve never seen another!

Marie-Claire Lefort died in 1971 and Marie-Francine Oppeneau is now 81 years old. Once upon a time, there was a basic website with information and images of some of their designs but it seems to have been allowed to expire. If you know (or want to find out) anything more about them and their designs, please leave a comment below.

Vintage Pat Keely safety poster

We featured a poster by Leonard Cusden in a recent post – and, as with the proverbial buses, two safety posters have come at once. Well, the same week anyway.

This one is by another renowned 20th century graphic artist – Pat Keely.

This ‘Keep Floors Clean’ poster was commissioned by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents in the 1950s.

In addition to his work for RoSPA, Pat Keely was also responsible for some iconic World War II posters done for The Ministry of Information. There are public transport and GPO commissions too – he even designed postage stamps.

Here are some further images of Pat Cokayne Keely’s work. We love the orange ‘Wear your Goggles’ poster you’ll see there.

As with the Leonard Cusden, this is an original vintage piece. We’re pretty sure that this particular poster image has never been reproduced so quite a scarce thing. It’s one for the graphic artist aficionados on one level, but also works simply as a decorative art work for the home. It would look great displayed on a kitchen wall – the imagery, colours and subject matter. There’s first refusal to our blog readers, so let us know if you’re interested.

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Leonard Cusden collectable

We love graphic design – and collect vintage examples from the mid twentieth century in particular.

…posters, menus, books and magazines are all potential sources.

We’ve just acquired this fabulous vintage poster by renowned graphic artist, Leonard Cusden. It dates from the 1950s and was commissioned by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents. It warns of the dangers of working with compressed air. He’s also famous for his distinctive 1930s railway posters.

It’s very striking in terms of design & colours – we love the ghoulish spectre!

Quite a few of his health & safety posters have now been re-produced by RoSPA. We were very chuffed with this find, especially as it’s an original copy from the period.

H is for Home Harbinger

Tag: poster

Designer Desire: Daphne Padden

Designer Desire: Lefor Openo

Vintage Pat Keely safety poster

Leonard Cusden collectable