Books, books and Apps.

I've been designing two new books for Tom Phillips which are soon to be published by the Bodleian Library. The Bodleian has recently acquired the archive of all Tom's correspondence and his vast photographic postcard collection. They are planning to publish a series of small volumes from the collection, each one containing over 200 images in a particular theme or subject. The first two will be Readers with a foreword by David Lodge, and Women & Hats with a foreword by Philip Treacy. These were really good fun to do, and the photographs are fascinating. Also a little bit easier to work on than African Goldweights in which all the weights were reproduced at actual size. All had to be measured and the image sizes set to be completely accurate. This made the layout a nightmare! I'm now starting work on Bicycles and Weddings which will be out next year.


The covers are all coloured in 'period' liveries like old cars of the 30's and 40's. I have a lovely new set of pantone CMYK samples which I pore over endlessly. I once borrowed a set of old BMC paint sample chips when we were restoring the van, and tried to chose the paint colour from it. I had a terrible time deciding as they were all so lovely. It even had the lilac paint used on the Minor Millions in it. In the end we went for Pale Primrose. Not a Morris colour, but one used on early MG Midgets. It matched a set of 40's teacups I'd found in a charity shop. Cars nowadays are so dreadfully boring.

We've also been developing an iPad App with Jonathan Hills and John Bowring based on Tom's treated Victorian novel A Humument. This is a very exciting thing. The last published edition of A Humument was in 2004. Tom has since made 39 brand new pages and we've used all the tiff files from the 2004 Thames & Hudson edition, many scanned then for the first time since they were created. It should be in the App store in a few weeks and an iPhone version will follow. It's a lovely, fun thing, and seeing the pages in the iPad screen in full luminous colour is a real joy.

...and a Happier Day

Boy with Morris Owner magazine of May 1927, collection Tom Phillips.

For the last three months I have been working with Tom Phillips on a series of postcard books for the Bodleian Library. He has an extensive collection of private real photo postcards dating from the turn of the century to the 1940's. They are going to be held in the Bodleian Library Archive and they have decided to publish collections of the postcards in small volumes, each covering a different subject matter. The first two books will be Readers and Women & Hats.

There can be a little research involved when trying to date the cards, so when Tom came across this card of a little boy holding a Morris Owner magazine he gave it to me to investigate. As a long time Morris Minor owner I was excited to find the card and sent a scan of it to Nicola Parkins, the new editor of the Morris Minor Owners Club magazine. When I enlarged the card I discovered, to my great surprise, that the cover featured two military tanks!! I wondered to Nicola if Morris had built tanks. She came up trumps and in this month's Minor Matters there is a fantastic article about the magazine the little boy is holding (from May 1927) with the history of the one-man Morris-Martel tankette, a colour reproduction of the original magazine cover, AND I get my name splashed about all over my favourite subscription!

Minor Matters Vol XXXII no 1 July/August 2010

Meanwhile, my 'tankette' has failed her MOT on some worn out bushes. Nothing serious but I'm not sure I'll be fixing them in the spare room...

The van (Elsie), Kitty, Joey and Ralph in Topsham, August 2009.