{Pelicans at Eighty}
2017
Book cover
An attempt to capture something of the essence of the Pelican imprint for the 80th anniversary. With many thanks to James Mackay and Paul Lickiss for their help and support. Includes a note about my approach to the design:
I remember being taken to see the M25 motorway being built, and my grandfather saying just how marvellous everything would be once it was completed. Now, driving bumper-to-bumper around the London orbital in a haze of smog it can be difficult to recapture that sense of anticipation and possibility.
The same may be true of the Pelican series. I started collecting them without really knowing why. I was drawn to their wonderful titles - who could resist Social Life in the Insect World or The Normal Child and Some of His Abnormalities? I loved their confident design, the seemingly reckless flourish of a dust jacket, and the marvellously quirky authorial portraits. Nor did the contents disappoint. 'Should children read in bed?' enquires A157.
But there is something more. I realise now that, for me, Pelicans embody the very same optimism and spirit of social engineering that fired my grandfather, and my cover design is an attempt to distill that Pelican alchemy. For 80th anniversary conceptual rigour I chose A80 - Plastics. At first sight perhaps not very promising: a little dull, quite technical. But Pelicans rarely disappoint and V.E. Yarsley's dapper portrait and punning admonition that 'he who acetates is lost' provided early encouragement. The mind-bogglingly suggestive diagram on page 30 and the final chapter on 'Plastic Man' - a vision of plastic coffins, plastic cars and plastic teeth - confirmed beyond doubt that A80 is worthy of the Pelican logo.
Words are my material as an artist and they often slip anchor: I decided to read the book from cover to cover and select words and phrases that epitomise the Pelican series as a whole.
In our hyperlinked, post-everything world Pelicans are fascinating reminder of an alternative but in many ways equally problematic approach to knowledge. Congratulations to Paul Lickiss and James Mackay for this excellent and timely volume. Some of you at least will want to know a lot more.
Printed by Short Run Press
Published by the Penguin Collectors Society
ISBN: 9780993110665
Picture credit: Josh Murfitt
Book cover
An attempt to capture something of the essence of the Pelican imprint for the 80th anniversary. With many thanks to James Mackay and Paul Lickiss for their help and support. Includes a note about my approach to the design:
I remember being taken to see the M25 motorway being built, and my grandfather saying just how marvellous everything would be once it was completed. Now, driving bumper-to-bumper around the London orbital in a haze of smog it can be difficult to recapture that sense of anticipation and possibility.
The same may be true of the Pelican series. I started collecting them without really knowing why. I was drawn to their wonderful titles - who could resist Social Life in the Insect World or The Normal Child and Some of His Abnormalities? I loved their confident design, the seemingly reckless flourish of a dust jacket, and the marvellously quirky authorial portraits. Nor did the contents disappoint. 'Should children read in bed?' enquires A157.
But there is something more. I realise now that, for me, Pelicans embody the very same optimism and spirit of social engineering that fired my grandfather, and my cover design is an attempt to distill that Pelican alchemy. For 80th anniversary conceptual rigour I chose A80 - Plastics. At first sight perhaps not very promising: a little dull, quite technical. But Pelicans rarely disappoint and V.E. Yarsley's dapper portrait and punning admonition that 'he who acetates is lost' provided early encouragement. The mind-bogglingly suggestive diagram on page 30 and the final chapter on 'Plastic Man' - a vision of plastic coffins, plastic cars and plastic teeth - confirmed beyond doubt that A80 is worthy of the Pelican logo.
Words are my material as an artist and they often slip anchor: I decided to read the book from cover to cover and select words and phrases that epitomise the Pelican series as a whole.
In our hyperlinked, post-everything world Pelicans are fascinating reminder of an alternative but in many ways equally problematic approach to knowledge. Congratulations to Paul Lickiss and James Mackay for this excellent and timely volume. Some of you at least will want to know a lot more.
Printed by Short Run Press
Published by the Penguin Collectors Society
ISBN: 9780993110665
Picture credit: Josh Murfitt