INDEX 2021 and The best of Streamline Chicago (5/5)

 

In 2018 the Chicago History Museum had an exhibition called Modern by Design: Chicago Streamlines America. In his Preface, Joseph Loundy says that this book is a companion to the exhibition. I didn't see the show but I would agree that this superb title is really the last word about the style in the city.

The first essay in the book, by Robert Bruegmann, discusses the problem of defining Art Deco in relation to fine art and broader aspects of creativity like architecture, interior design, consumer and industrial product design, et cetera. I think this is one of the strengths of the book because it covers the broad scope of Deco styling (actually, I prefer to call it Streamline, which narrows it down to an American style, Art Deco suggests a more European movement).

There are five essays before the main theme of the book: Key 101 designs. Over 258 pages this considers, in year order, how the style is represented in the city and environs. Starting in 1914 with Frank Lloyd Wright's Midway Gardens and running through to 1949 with the fascinating Phantom bicycle from the Schwinn company. In between, you'll see plenty of commercial buildings and their interiors, houses, exhibitions, transport, toys, graphic design and from 1930 a Hostess Twinkie, looking very much like a shroud that covered steam engines to give them a streamlined look during the Thirties.

All of the entries are illustrated, frequently with more than one image and this is another excellent aspect of the book (325 in all) the pictures are well researched and mostly big on the page. The back pages have copious notes, index and nicely two map pages, one of the center of the city, the other the suburbs, both maps point out where commercial buildings and houses can be seen.

Art Deco Chicago reveals a city full of deco delights.

A refreshing visual change (5/5)

This is Sybille Schenker's first highly graphic fairy tale book from 2011. The words have been slightly abridged from the original Brothers Grimm story to fit into the graphic format of the book. The forty-eight pages are a mixture of colored paper and slightly thick tracing paper. Schenker cleverly uses this to allow her illustrations to show through one or two pages.

Oddly, the story says the witch's cottage is made of bread with cakes for the roof but the colored illustration doesn't give any suggestion of food but rather colored pieces of wallpaper. I thought the illustrations of the forest worked particularly well printed with black ink on the light grey of the tracing paper.

Schenker has now produced three books of fairy tales, each with a laser-cut title on the cover (protected with a clear plastic jacket) and different printing and laser-cut treatments for the inside pages. This graphic treatment for a story makes a refreshing change from the usual (and predictable) fairy tale books for children.

 

A delightful new look for an old classic (5/5)

Illustrator Sybille Schenker presents a new twist on this famous fairy tale, written originally by either Charles Parrault or the Brothers Grimm. This version has been translated from the German by Anthea Bell, who brings the tale up to date with some contemporary usage. Red Riding Hood is referred to throughout the pages as Little Red Cap and when her mother tells her to go and see grandmother she says: "...and when you reach her house, don't forget to say good morning, and don't go poking about in every corner!"

What interested me about the book are Schenker's illustrations and design for several laser cut pages. This allows for the next page to be visible through the cutout shapes, also several pages are colored rather than white. The front cover has the title, in an old fashioned script, laser cut and to protect some of the delicate letter shapes the publisher's have provided a clear plastic jacket. 

I thought it was clever visual interpretation of this children's classic and Schenker has designed two other titles (The Frog Prince and Hansel and Gretel) from the same publisher.