Alain Grée

I'm in love with Alain Grée... well, with his work, of course... This is the only book I've got and as you can see it's pretty shabby. I'm desperatly on the look-out for more books by him, but so far I came up blank. I think his illustrations are so inspiring! Hopefully I be able to blog more about him in the near future, that would mean that I've found new books to share.

Paint-by-numbers-doodle

Handmade black and white doodle, coloured in Photoshop.

Cock a doodle doo

Spoken like a true rooster!

Tweet tweet

A nice little book about tropical birds. The publisher was Koninklijke P. Sluis (producer of bird feed). The pictures are beautifully drawn and very colourful. But the descriptions are now and then hilarious! Although the book isn't dated I've found similar ones online and they seem te be from 1959.

Huisje boompje beestje

This kid's game is based on the German board game 'Mensch ärgere dich nicht', the Americans seem to know it as Parcheesi, and the English as Ludo. But this is the simplified kids' version. Lots of people my age grew up with this one. It still is my son's favourite game.

Grandma's secrets

I love this book, it's not vintage (from 1979, quite old, but not exactly what I would call vintage...) but the examples of the crochet work are such beautiful designs, so graphic. Inspiring! I've got another book just like this one, I'll post that one soon.

Hey sexy!

Mathemathics on an old Resulta

This is the Resulta E7, the calculator my parents used back in the old days. My father used to be a coal merchant and calculated his financial accounting on this piece of equipment. I was always intrigued by it and they sometimes let me play with it. A few months ago they gave it to me, it brought back a lot of memories!

Domino for kids

Domino with pictures, that'll be my next project.

Double bingo!

Double bingo at the thriftshop; the game itself and the bargain it turned out to be...

I'm Jac (Irene Jacobs) in Vancouver!

Yesterday I was searching for new input for a post about an interesting illustrator when Irene Jacobs (I'm Jac) popped into my head. Years ago I worked with her a on an assignment for a Dutch energy company. So I went over to her website and I was utterly surprised and amazed to discover that she made the beautiful illustrations and pictograms for the amazing Vancouver Olympic graphic style (in close collaboration with the Vanoc design team). Probably the whole world was aware of the fact that a Dutch girl was commissioned for this job but I only found out yesterday...
This is what the official Vancouver website says about the graphic style:

'Created in collaboration with illustrator Irene Jacobs of I’m JAC Design, the pictograms represent 19 Olympic and five Paralympic sport disciplines with a simplified silhouette while incorporating the added dynamism of the athlete in motion. The pictograms and sport illustrations were inspired by modern sport photography, pop culture, fashion illustration and manga-style comics (a Japanese genre of comic books) to give athletes an heroic feel and a close-up view of their intensity and athleticism, while also serving as an inspiration to youth.
'

The second picture is the illustration she did for Eneco, embedded in our graphic design. That was made about 10 years ago, so you can see how her work developed. She has a blog as well.

Vintage children's illustration

How cute are these girls! Can't remember when and where I bought them. There is a price on the back so there's no doubt I bought them and didn't rip them out of a book... I'm guessing the person I bought it from ripped them out and sold them as a an old print.

More letters to learn

So great I found this small tin box with letters. It's an additional set to the teaching aid I posted yesterday. Different publisher, different type but same pupose.

Sketching

I've been playing around a bit with my son Lewis' drawings and my doodles to see if I can make a new book of friends for him.
I really like the idea of mixing the two styles, but perhaps his drawings attract enough attention. No need to steal his thunder...

Spelling box

This box was given to me by my sister-in-law. I think it's beautiful. My love for (vintage) kids' stuff, and typography is combined in this beautiful piece of teaching aid. A more modern version of this is still used in Dutch classrooms. My daughter Mila is quite familiar with it. It's a good thing children have small fingers, it took me forever to spell 'turning pages'. After a while I got bored and irritated 'cause I couldn't find a second letter N, so I turned a U upside down. Same effect, right?! (spoken like a true typographer)

England & Wales

I love (old) maps!

Tin toy

Eventhough I love those old wind-up tin toys I never bought one myself. Corné bought this is one at a flea market at least 20 years ago. Wind it up and it starts driving and making a (slow) summersault.

Women's work

I love this book, it's an absolute treasure. It's an encyclopedia 'des Ouvrages de Dames' published in 1900 by DMC (the needlework thread manufacturer). Just look at the drawings, they are so precise and so clear. Really amazing.