This made me instantly happy inside. I loved David the Gnome, and this little guy is just like him. I unfortunately don’t know the date of this book, as the original source is rather elusive..otherwise this would be on its way to me right now. Via Etsy.

You may have already seen this floating around, but just in case, store this away in your brain under “graphically stunning”. Katie, the brilliant author and designer behind this book was nice enough to send over some images to add to our online collection of delicious eye candy. I have a soft spot for well-executed children’s books, and the simplicity of these illustrations just did me in.

If you like having pretty things to look at in your home, or just want to read more about Eli, check out their website.

More inside the post!

What I love about these is that he’s taken classic vintage elements (big swashes, elaborate flourishes, 3D banners) and brought them up to date in the way that he utilized them through size and placement.

Lots more inside the post!

Jim Tierney is a rising star in the design/illustration scene. It’s obvious he has a pretty great career ahead of him. Check out his portfolio here.

You’d think someone would have done a series like this that all fit together (it seems like half the designers out there are doing it with their business cards and packaging). I’ve always liked mixing black and white imagery with bright colors, and the use of the vintage medical illustration to pull it all together is nice. It’s impressive that each individual book is as strong individually as they are as a whole.

More inside the post!

Oliver Sacks Covers by Cardon Webb. Via Typographie.

These are just a few of the hundreds upon hundreds of cover designs published by Hetzel for the vast collection of works by Jules Verne- the father of the science-fiction genre. While everyone was trying to figure out how to create new modes of transportation and picking out the latest style of top hats and canes, he was dreaming up A Journey to the Center of the Earth and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. Needless to say, just any ordinary book cover would not do for a stories this creative. They were ground breaking at the time!

Tons more inside the post (I had a really hard time being decisive..)

These last few covers are from a series of Verne’s work (there are quite a few I didn’t include). I liked how just the central title area changed and all the different ways in which they treated the title with ribbons and patterns.

All of these images are from this website which has an amazing collection of cardboard covers. You can apparently gain access to the full collection if you e-mail the site’s owner. If you happen to take advantage of that, send me any striking covers you come across!

More inside the post!

These are all from the book From Mother Goose to Dr. Seuss: Children’s Book Covers, 1860-1960. You can buy it here.

If you want to see more covers online, check out Bibliodyssey’s Flikr.

All images are from the Smithsonian’s Library of Seed Catalogs. For direct links to each catalog item, please click the title of the image in the following list: 1. Catalogue of Choice Seeds (1898) 2. Price List and Descriptive Catalogue of F. Barteldes & Co. (1899) 3. Dobbie’s Catalogue & Competitive Guide (1899) 4. Uknown 5. Annual Catalogue of Seeds, Plants, Etc. (1892)

This was the cover of a booklet which, by deductive reasoning, housed the arrival and departure times of the trains at this particular railway station. I was extremely surprised to find that there are actually ads on the cover. The type and colors are all so similar (creating a nice unified aesthetic overall) that any business today would have a heart attack if their ad wasn’t visually fighting with everything else on the page. Gone are the days..

Via MikeyAshworth

The blue ad seems pretty creative for its time in that the image wraps around the cover, creating intrigue that urges the consumer to flip it over. It was pretty out-of-the-box thinking compared to  what everyone else was doing in the late 1800s.

Hop inside the post and let me know what you think!Images via the Smithsonian Institution Libraries.

To the dads who live out each day being manly men, fighting off rabid otters, defeating a hundred flesh-eating squirrels, and warding off grizzly bears. Consider these a tribute to your masculine feats.

Inside the post: more fantastic feats of manly men being attacked by killer turtles and flesh eating squirrels!

Via The Art of Manliness blog.