Books?

[Keith Pettit]

Thanks for all the updates, amazing! As a usual lurker this will take me ages to trawl through!
I feel very guilty when Mike asks everyone else for input on this BB, for not contributing, but Mike, and I know this has been said and I know you have answered this point, but it is intimidating for us mere mortals to add posts with so many masters viewing and adding their own input!
However I have had this post in mind for sometime now, and as I'm here thanking William for the updates. My question is this, I know a lot of people posting here are avid book collectors and I was wondering what everyones personal favorite book is for resources?
My current one is "Banners, Ribbons and Scrolls" from Dover
a perrenial favorite is "The Art of the Cigar Label" Written by Davidson.
And one of my ealiest books that set me on this path was a Christmas present from my partner called "Cocoa and Corsets" by Micheal Jubb a wonderful book full of British advertising posters from the 1800's.
I'm for ever collecting new books and looking for new customers to try the latest inspiration on! I would love to add more to my collection so I would be very interested in hearing what everyone is inspired by.
Speak soon
Keith

_________________
Regards,
Keith

[Danny Baronian]

Keith,

check out the resource list that's posted on The American Sign Museum's site:

http://www.signmuseum.com/exhibits/libr ... books.html

It's a list Mike compiled of what he considers the top 25 books. With the old forum pages being added to this site, we now have the ability to do a word search, so give that a try too since the question of books has come up in the past.

A book I enjoy is Signwork by Bill Stewart. It covers many techniques of the sign trade that used to be quite common in most shops. It's printed in the UK, is out of print, but should be easily found on ebay or other sites that list books.

While you asked specifically for books as a resource, if haven't looked here:

http://www.theletterheads.com/lhparts/atkinsonmain.html

you should. A lot of very good information.

Hopefully this will help and others will also add they're suggestions.

[Mike Jackson]

Hi Keith,
Thanks for the NEW post. Nice to see some of the old posts getting transferred, but it also great to get some new ones!

In case you never found it, check out the American Sign Museum's web site. Lots of great information accumulating there!

Check out
http://www.signmuseum.com/exhibits/libr ... books.html
That's a list of my Top 25 Sign Books. Most of them are quite old, and most out of print, but a few were reprinted and still readily available if you dig around.


After quite a few years of searching and unsuccessful bidding, I finally bought a better Heberling book from 1922. Seems most of them are worn and tattered. I am not sure if that was a result of poor book craftsmanship, poor materials, or whether the books were just used to death. For someone like me, looking for cool little ornaments and panels, the book is limited, but when I look it over from a "learning" book, it is actually a very good one. Jeff Lang has his grubby biscuit hooks out ready to snag my old one, shown above. I will be happy to see it go to a new good home. When I get a few minutes, I need to send a new photo of the Heberling book along with the Halsted Book of Ornaments and Designs. I finally found an original of that book about a year ago.


William is still transferring posts. Watch for one about the Wenzel folios. The group of about 10 folios has to be one of my favorites now. I heard Larry White found one a while back, too.

One of my happy memories about going to the California Conclaves was when we all packed up and headed to the big architectural/art bookstore in Santa Monica. I seem to have always spent a lot there each time. The last time I was there, I noticed some of the large book chains have also added themselves to the shopping strip.

There are quite a few avid book collectors here. We all have our individual favorites, and not all of them are old and out of print.

I'd have trouble letting my Mucha, Leyendecker, or NC Wyeth books get away from me. They are more about illustrators than sign making, but still wonderful to look through.

Hopefully, others will decide to pound their keyboard and add some responses. It has been quiet here lately, except for the additions of the old posts!

Mike

[Keith Pettit]

Danny & Mike,
Thanks for the reply.
Mike I have been "lurking" for a while and have seen the post regarding the Wenzel Folio's, stunning stuff. Whilst Mucha is very well known to me, I adore his stuff, pure genius! but Lyendecker and Wyeth, new to me, do tell!
And Danny, Mike's top 25 is just what I mean, though chasing long out of print collectables is a little out of my budget! I do have both Atkinson's and Strong's reprinted books.
I visited Paul Rafferty, an immensly talented signmaker, last year and trawled through his book collection, I got lots of titles to chase down. I'm sure if I went to anybody elses shop I could discover more and more titles to add to my own collection, so hopefully everyone can save me the travel expenses and share their own inspiring books without a need of a personnel visit from me!!

[Mike Jackson]

J.C. Leyendecker is often remembered as the "Arrow Shirt" artist. Besides the illustrations he did for them, his artwork adorned a big chunk of the Saturday Evening Post magazines. I just love his painting style.

The book I own is called J.C. Leyendecker byMichael Schau, 1974 Watson-Guptill

Check out this link to see more of his work:
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/leyendec.htm

N.C. Wyeth was Andrew Wyeth's father, and did illustrations at about the same time as Lyendecker. His paintings were equally powerful and interesting.

Chek out this link to see more of Wyeth's work:
http://www.bpib.com/illustrat/wyeth.htm

If you want to see more, do a Google search on them to find lots of pages and photos.