Lauren Child’s first Charlie and Lola picture book is turning 25 years old. I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato is not only a mouthful, but it is very alarming from a typographic perspective. Rarely do I see quite so many warnings and highlights when typesetting a text. A very special anniversary edition with behind-the-scenes extras from the author is on the menu.
Inner spaces: Indesign reveals all.
Some fine teacher notes for My Dog, Hen have been prepared by Penny Kemp and can be downloaded here.
I have recently acquired a number of cardboard boxes of the first edition UK hardback of My Dog, Hen which are being sold through my website.
If you contact me directly I’ll happily put a drawing on it or initial it for you, wrap it up, then walk up the street, cross the road to my post office, go inside, and post it to you via Royal Mail. Some booksellers struggle to offer this type of personalised service.
Of course, if you want the book pristine, untouched and from-the-factory then that’s OK too. Let me know when you order.
Click to roll the video tape…
Thank you to the Ned Hotel, London, and the families who came to the book reading yesterday. We drew pictures, and read My Dog, Hen , and the children ate the best looking pastries I’ve ever seen. The reading was inside what was previously a water tank that serviced the building, but is now an excellent cabana-style bar area. The building is the old Midlands Bank, designed by Edwin Lutyens, but the children weren’t particularly interested in the structure so much as the jam donuts. I tried to steer the conversation back around to the construction process and the physics of the rooftop water reservoir, but they wanted to talk about things like a bulldog eating fried eggs and a cat named Twinkle. A good time was had by all.
Thanks to Matthew and his team at the hotel, and to Phil Perry who knows what she’s doing.
Not being able to photograph the room and attendees, like a courtroom artist I have to draw the event from memory.
The City of London early on a Sunday is always shockingly peaceful.
Growing up, it was unusual not to find a full set of encyclopaedia in a friend’s house I was visiting.
Years later I learned that if they did have the full set, then that family were probably on a subscription. People went door to door selling subscriptions. A subscription meant when the encyclopaedia company felt like they needed to update the information, they would send the customer a new complete set of the latest edition – A to Z. This meant that customers were left with a full set of superceded, outdated, hardback encyclopaedias burning a hole in their spare room or garage.
On world book day, I want to remember the many sets of encyclopeadia and the stalled subscriptions, and the school fetes unable to sell old sets on. But it’s not all bad memories because I had two volumes (D and K, 1965) which I salvaged parts from for collages.
Volume K, circa 1965.
“It's cold today, but in a spring way, and I love you.” – Vladimir Nabokov. Letters to Vera.
Thank you to Nico in Poland for his nice card and drawing. I like your confident use of black, and how you aren’t governed by the dictates of lines to colour between. Keep it up.
Spring has sprung.
Being outside.
Finally, the Apollo lunar module I made eleven years ago has a purpose. This 1/72 scale model of the LEM really gives the viewer a good feel for the size of the book Hello Space.
Objects may be closer than they appear.