Patterns, Printing, and Bookbinding: Coralie Bickford-Smith’s Book List
By Steve Kroeter July 16, 2013![]() |
Coralie Bickford-Smith |
Graphic designer Coralie Bickford-Smith: Penguin Books UK (London)
“My book list contains the favorites that I find in my hands time and again when starting a project or feeling a bit lost,” says London-based graphic designer Coralie Bickford-Smith, whose covers for Penguin Classics’ clothbound series recalling the age of Victorian bookbinding have won her recognition and fans worldwide. “Each book on my list has its own memory of how and why it ended up in my consciousness and what it taught me.”
A self-described “pattern-obsessed” designer, Bickford-Smith includes among her book choices Lewis F. Day’s Pattern Design, originally published in 1903, which she characterizes as “perfect for dissecting the fundamental elements of pattern and for learning the rules from the beginning.” She also cites two books by 20th-century design historian Lesley Jackson: 20th Century Pattern Design: Textile and Wallpaper Pioneers (Bickford-Smith calls it “a great sourcebook”) and From Atoms to Patterns, which tells the story of a unique collaboration between scientists and engineers for the 1951 Festival of Britain. The “Festival Pattern Group” as the collaborative venture was known, used diagrams of atomic structures to create patterns used on consumer products such as textiles, wallpaper, ceramics, and glass.
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Selection of bindings from Penguin Classics’ clothbound series one, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith, 2008. Courtesy of Coralie Bickford-Smith |
And of course there are books on printing and bookbinding. Michael Twyman’s Printing, 1770-1970: An Illustrated History of Its Development and Uses in England, has a particular resonance for Bickford-Smith. Its author “was my professor, so I remember it being printed at Reading University—it was an exciting event for a wanna-be book designer.” Ruari McLean, the author of Victorian Publishers’ Book-Bindings in Cloth & Leather (as well as its companion volume, Victorian Publishers’ Book-Bindings in Paper) is “a hero of mine,” says Bickford-Smith. “This title is lusciously illustrated and historically informative,” and McLean’s books “have been integral to my research in this area of book history.”
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Selection of covers of books by F. Scott Fitzgerald featuring metallic foil and matte paper, designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith for Penguin Classics, 2010. Courtesy of Coralie Bickford-Smith |
Along with several other intriguing books on graphic design, on her list is William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Experience, perhaps the best-known of the poet’s Illuminated Books, in which reproductions of Blake’s hand-lettered poems are intertwined with his color illustrations—text, image, and design enhancing one another. It is, comments, Bickford-Smith, “my best friend in the form of a book.”
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Announcements
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Louis Kahn: The Importance of a Drawing
Edited by Michael Merrill
Publisher: Lars Müller Publishers
Published: October 2021
The first in-depth study of drawings as primary sources of insight into architect Louis Kahn’s architecture and creative imagination. Based on unprecedented archival research, with over 900 illustrations and written contributions by Michael Benedikt, Michael Cadwell, David Leatherbarrow, Louis Kahn, Nathaniel Kahn, Sue Ann Kahn, Michael J. Lewis, Robert McCarter, Michael Merrill, Marshall Meyers, Jane Murphy, Gina Pollara, Harriet Pattison, Colin Rowe, David Van Zanten, Richard Wesley, and William Whitaker.
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World’s Most Creative People by Debbie Millman
Why Design Matters: Conversations with the World's Most Creative People
By Debbie Millman
Publisher: Harper Design
Forthcoming: February 22, 2022
Debbie Millman—author, educator, brand consultant, and host of the widely successful and award-winning podcast “Design Matters”—showcases dozens of her most exciting interviews, bringing together insights and reflections from today’s leading creative minds from across diverse fields.
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future by Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Design Emergency: Building a Better Future
By Alice Rawsthorn and Paola Antonelli
Publisher: Phaidon Press
Forthcoming May 25, 2022
Rawsthorn and Antonelli tell the stories of the remarkable designers, architects, engineers, artists, scientists, and activists who are at the forefront of positive change worldwide. Focusing on four themes—Technology, Society, Communication, and Ecology—the authors present a unique portrait of how our great creative minds are developing new design solutions to the major challenges of our time, while helping us to benefit from advances in science and technology.
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn by Harriet Pattison
Our Days Are Like Full Years: A Memoir with Letters from Louis Kahn
By Harriet Pattison
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: October 2020
An intimate glimpse into the professional and romantic relationship between Harriet Pattison and the renowned architect Louis Kahn. Harriet Pattison, FASLA, is a distinguished landscape architect. She was Louis Kahn’s romantic partner from 1959 to 1974, and his collaborator on the landscapes of the Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and the F.D.R. Memorial/Four Freedoms Park, New York. She is the mother of their son, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Nathaniel Kahn.
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context by David Raizman
Reading Graphic Design History: Image, Text, and Context
By David Raizman
Publisher: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Published: December 2020
An innovative approach to graphic design that uses a series of key artifacts from the history of print culture in light of their specific historical contexts. It encourages the reader to look carefully and critically at print advertising, illustration, posters, magazine art direction, and typography, often addressing issues of class, race, and gender.
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian by Rick Poynor
David King: Designer, Activist, Visual Historian
By Rick Poynor
Publisher: Yale University Press
Published: September 2020
A comprehensive overview of the work and legacy of David King (1943–2016), whose fascinating career bridged journalism, graphic design, photography, and collecting. King launched his career at Britain’s Sunday Times Magazine in the 1960s, starting as a designer and later branching out into image-led journalism, blending political activism with his design work.
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