"...there is in London all that life can afford."

Maybe I will go to London this year. I left my heart there and it is lonely without me...

The Simplicity of the Spheniscidae

Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius—and a lot of courage—to move in the opposite direction. - E. F. Schumacker

I can't get enough of Classic Penguin book covers which owe much of the genius of their simplicity to the orderly mind of Jan Tschichold. (Thanks to him, I absolutely rely on the Van de Graaf canon when laying out book interiors. It never lets me down.)

I also can't get enough of online shopping. (Honestly. Someone should stage an intervention.)

Imagine my exultation, therefore, at discovering THIS! I'll have one of everything, please! (Except, of course, the remarkable board game. Apparently they don't ship it to the USA. Communists.)

However, despite my loyalty to the Tschichold covers I am absolutely (albeit heretically) besotted by this new Ruben Toledo 'Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition' cover of Pride and Prejudice. I have a bazillion copies of this book but I might have to make it a bazillion-and-one...

'How To Be A Gentleman of Leisure'...

These cartoon sketches are as old as the hills, but I thought they might constitute a good inaugural posting for this design-oriented blog. It's an attempt to capture that Wodehousian fantasy... those halcyon days in the 1920s that I wish I had enjoyed.

Also, argyle rocks.

My original conception for this project was that the illustrations be designed into a two-page 'instructional booklet' for the aspiring gentleman of leisure. Like so: