I had to post this brilliant advert from the 1970′s for British cycle manufacturers, Holdsworth. I love the expressions on the faces of the riders… One look at this lot and you know that they ended up at a pub ten miles down the road. Oh, how it has changed.  But what an advert… Great [...]

I have to confess that one of my longest standing inspirations in the design world is Creative Review magazine. The specialised content that appears on their blog is just geeky enough to keep me coming back for more. I love the printed version of their magazine and although I feel that the weighty price tag [...]

When you walk through London’s East end, you sometimes catch a gimplse of an old gloomy Victorian alley or a closed-down pub that has been entombed by neighbouring development. It’s at times like this that mind wonders back to the shady notoriety of this area in the Victorian times. It was a place that the [...]

If I was out to sea in a little trawler bouncing around through the bluish fug of a 4.30am start, I would want for nothing more than a Fisherman’s friend to be rolling around my gums… What exactly are they? They’re not sweets, not tablets, nor are they mints; I think one could call them [...]

I have been haunted by a sustained fear of Eastern European puppet shows and marionettes for many years now. I can’t quite put my finger on what it is that I find so utterly terrifying about them, but there is something which makes me judder. That certain something, is also what keeps me coming back [...]

It’s London Transport poster collection time again! This time I’ve singled out Dorrit Dekk. Not just for her transport posters, but also in recognition of her mid-century illsutrated poster work for P&O (including some menus I have previously posted) and print work for Air France. Printmaker, illustrator and designer Dorrit Dekk was born 1917 in [...]

Nunhead or ‘All Saints’ cemetery is one of the magnificent seven cemeteries in London. It sprawls across a wooded hill in a quiet part of Nunhead and is maintained (to a degree) by Southwark council. I’d heard rumours of this place being wonderfully overgrown and mysterious and so, on a damp sunday I decided to [...]

The Central Illustration Agency was started in 1983 by a few wily creative types looking for a collective home to channel their (mostly print-based) illustration work. It’s hard to imagine the world of creative illustration and self-promotion without the omnipresent aid of the internet, but back then, there most definitely wasn’t a wireless router flashing [...]