150

Mmm, now, who best to illustrate 150 years of the London Underground this week; Enid Marx; Eduardo Paolozzi; Harry Beck; Edward Johnston or Charles Holden? Why not have some Marianne Straub from the V&A's understandably excellent archive.

Out of the Woods

Even though stationery buyers like to see samples a good few months in advance, we're pretty crap at designing out-of-season; it's so much easier drawing Christmas cards when you're knee-deep in Christmas.

Baubles aside, we've made a few other styles this last month, like this small series of woodcut cards (though, more honestly, they're collages). Not sure whether to print four-colours or just black'n'white like The Patterned Pals range they'll be replacing.

Though I'll sure be sorry to loose The Patterned Pals (alongside the other styles we've had printed elsewhere over the years), I'm convinced that they made a better economic model than an ecological one; hand-printing to order is simply too efficient!

Whatever the colour, I like the electrified 80s hedgehog best.

• Fontella Bass, 1940—2012

24/7

Oh, I wish it could be Christmas everyday-yay... then I'd use this plate non-stop.

• 10" date plate, Raija Uosikkinen for Finland's ever-popular Arabia

Here's a pair of recycled lithographic Christmas cards that never quite made it into production. When we changed supplier all our paper became recycled and made these guys sort of superfluous. Hopefully one day I'll find another job for them.

 
• Alex Moulton, 1920—2012

 

I remember the first part of Steven Claydon's bacchanalian after-show party pretty well, though later events became noticeably less distinct in recollection... before receding from memory entirely. Luckily for me the exhibition itself lingers in the mind with crystalline, sober clarity. If you're in London's west end for some Christmas shopping you could do worse than flee the crowds for a five minute culture fix.

Rat. Pearl. London. Onion: 

Sadie Coles, 4 New Burlington Place, London W1

29 November 2012 – 26 January 2013

Perfect weather for penguins this week. While Robert Bright's Which is Willy? (1963, Windmill Press) is wonderfully wintery, this really gets our little wings flapping with anticipation.

Whoever designed this flyer must be too cool for Crimbo or something... what's with the architecture and bold sans serif? I want sausage dogs in Santa hats with jingle bells galore. Still, hopefully the event will be full of festive fun with bargains by the sack-load. I'll be selling my usual quality seconds at rock-bottom prices and getting all squiffy on warm beverages that taste like old man's aftershave. Now, that must have sold it to you!

Friday December 7, 6.30pm-10.30pm
Saturday December 8 2012, 12pm-6pm
Great Western Studios, 65 Alfred Road, London W2

Wintering

The three months of winter start today and I'm thinking we've got enough wood to keep warm. There's a heap of scrap this year but it'll burn well enough alongside the good stuff. Looks like we're not the only ones hunkering down; Pocket just loves this cover (made from parachutes by a Polish PoW), then again, there's probably a tell-tale layer of fur on every soft surface around here.

No prizes for guessing what I'm up to this weekend... if you're in the area you might want to get up to it too!

1/2

The boy hits 6 months this weekend. I know people don't generally celebrate half birthdays but we're told it's a significant milestone on the journey of parenthood... it's also an excellent excuse to thank friends and family for some of their beautiful gifts. Keep 'em coming!

  

Svalbard

So saddening to see the probable fate of the UK's Ash trees turn ever more certain with steady spread of Chalara fraxinea, or Ash Dieback. Maybe it's because trees occupy that time-frame somewhere between the human life-span and deep geological time that we imbue the landscape they create with something like permanence.

When Charles Raymond (of Joy of Sex fame) completed these illustrations in 1973 the Elm was falling prey to the disease that decimated their population. Still, it's heartening to know, irrespective of our blunders here on the surface, all known horticultural specimens form part of Svalbard Global Seed Vault, interned 120 meters beneath a Norwegian sandstone mountain.

Radio On

The BBC celebrate 90 years of radio this week and, given the choice, we'd all be listening in on Jacob Jensen's colourful old Beolit 707 while we print... shame they're either all busted-up or bucket-loads of money!

Yay

I do enjoy a topical post, no matter how tenuous, so when it came time to congratulate the US on Obama's second term, where better to look than The Museum of American Folk Art's 1983 book, Expressions of a New Spirit? As you might expect, there's a heap of beautiful quilts and these lovely newspaper patterns for a Bird of Paradise bridal piece (1858-63).

The 5th

Remember, remember the Fifth of November? In the little town of Lewes it's impossible to forget. Shop fronts are boarded up, folk test the fireworks months in advance and take their Bonfire processions so seriously that it's nearly no fun at all. 

• Musical nightscapes from Images qui Chantent, Edition Fleurus, 1969/1971

Danse Macabre

Wonderful Halloween themed drawings by Ub Iwerks for early Disney animation Skeleton Dance, 1929. In the intervening years our collective attention span has become so worn that this so-called short now seems interminable.

  

We Say Meow

So nice to be featured on the cat-tastic We Say Meow. Seems there's not just a correlation between Felis domesticus and eccentric spinsterhood but with illustrators too! You can paw over some of our stuff alongside some amazing artists and their furry feline friends. It's also great excuse for me to post this whiskered wonder from 1966 by Arnold Varga.

Hubbub

Spent last weekend staying with pals in London's bright autumnal sunlight. We felt like just-landed aliens from a US film, eyeing the human hubbub and sudden wealth of stuff with a too naked curiosity, putting away pastries like we'd never tasted your Earth food.

The baby went to his first private view too, Hannah Sawtell's crisply coherent Vendor at the Bloomberg Space but like good parents we swerved the after-show party for some more of your Earth food. And, though we'd missed the opening of Simon Martin's UR Feeling at The Camden Arts Centre, we caught up with him after the Sunday talk from Frieze's Dan Fox.

Simon's work may look like a dour museological re-presentation of the C20th anthropological artefact but plays-out like an ultra-hip cultural studies lecture. Neither entirely canonical nor wholly obscure, works selected here seem to operate on the boundaries of this-or-that discipline. This sharp curatorial collection forms the research for a forthcoming film and includes pieces from Sottsass, Burton and Shore, alongside his own open-edition poster, a knowing skit on the structural exposé of New Wave marketing. 

from top: Richard Artschwager, Chair, edition of 6, 1965-2000 // Storm Thorgerson/Hipgnosis, LP cover for XTC's Go2, 1978 // Ettore Sottsass/Memphis, Malabar room divider, 1982 // Stephen Shore, Twenty-First and Spruce Street, 1974

0.99

This Liberty Bauhaus fabric cost 99p from Oxfam, I hoped the muted palette might suit this tiny cane rocking chair. I've always been game for a bit of ad hoc upholstery but this is my first attempt at piping. I'm thinking it looks pretty good... from a distance!