Really glamorous 5/5

To celebrate eighty-five years seems an odd choice for a monthly magazine; usually, it's a hundred years or maybe after a publication closes. Glamour (with the English spelling rather than the American glamor) is essentially a fashion magazine but as the book's content reveals, it has always covered subjects that are important to women, like feminism, finance, work, sex, politics, abortion, divorce and more.

The book is essentially visual with several hundred color photos, mostly fashion, personalities and covers but also reproductions of spreads where Glamour tackled big issues of the day, for example, pages 136-137 reproduce articles about Roe V. Wade or pages 254-255 articles about the pill (and a male version?). 

Designer Alexandra Folino does a neat job of tying all the images and typography together, though I would have preferred a chapter with all the covers together (the usual way in other books I have about magazine histories) rather than cover thumbnails scattered throughout the pages. The fashion and personality photography is superb, right from the first issue in 1939 and printed on a silky matt gloss with a 175 screen helps, too.

If you are a regular Glamour reader, you'll be interested in having this book to see how the magazine evolved over the decades; others will enjoy a look back at publishing history.

US

Glamour: An Extraordinary History: 85 Years of Women Breaking Boundaries: Pearlman, Natasha, Wolle, Ruhama, Moeslein, Anna, Barry, Samantha: 9781419767050: Amazon.com: Books

UK

Glamour: An Extraordinary History: 85 Years of Women Breaking Boundaries: Amazon.co.uk: Pearlman, Natasha, Wolle, Ruhama, Moeslein, Anna, Barry, Samantha: 9781419767050: Books

Signs of past times 2/5

A fellow publication designer, knowing of my interest in pictorial Americana from past decades, suggested that this book should interest me, so I bought a copy. The author (and designer) has certainly collated a rich selection of signage from Hollywood and other parts of LA. There are over three hundred photos in the book and predictably, this includes a few soft focus ones that maybe should have been left out, like the Hollywood Brown Derby (pages 86-87) Movie Town Motel (144) and Holiday Inn (147).

Despite the fascinating material, I was very disappointed with the book. Visually, it's a mess. It doesn't seem to be designed using a grid to tie the different design elements together throughout the book. The only constant seems to be the text size (with lots of different line lengths) and type for most of the headings. Annoyingly, the photos are presented in various styles: square, oblong, upright, circular and frequently overlapping or butted together. Their impact on each spread competes with colored panels with white or black type and colored graphic shapes for chapter headings. It's as if each spread is designed to be unique, unlike any other in the book.

There are a couple of other less-than-professional pages. Page 4 has the photo credits arranged alphabetically rather than by page number first. If the reader wants to know about Tiny Naylor's coffee shop they have read through all the credits until they find 106. Page 175 has a whole page of the author's thanks, several hundred words worth, too. I doubt any reader would be interested. 

I very much doubt if other publishers of highly visual books, like Chronicle, Taschen or Thames & Hudson would put out a book as scrappy looking as Hollywood Signs.

US

Hollywood Signs: Glittering Graphics and Glowing Neon in Mid-Century Tinseltown: Kikkert, Kathy: 9781626401259: Amazon.com: Books

UK

Hollywood Signs: Glittering Graphics and Glowing Neon in Mid-Century Tinseltown: Amazon.co.uk: Kikkert, Kathy: 9781626401259: Books

Look and see 5/5

Originally published in 1973 by MoMA and reprinted several times over the years (my copy is from 1999) and worth buying for some great historical photos but also in equal measure John Szarowski's excellent comments on the hundred photos. All of them are mono, this is because color wasn't considered 'art' until Szarowski curated the work of Bill Eggleston in a 1976 MoMA exhibition. I've always liked this selection of photos, of course, people are the dominant point of many of them but here are still lifes, landscapes, a strobe shot of a foot kicking a football, first world war aerial reconnaissance, architecture, street scenes and more. 

On page 151 is Eugene Smith's famous photo of a doctor treating a head wound of a young girl, which was from a photo essay in Life magazine, September 1948. Szarowski makes the point that millions of people primarily experienced photos in newspapers and magazines (and in their advertisements). Still, it's impossible to tell looking through the pages what images were commissioned or a photographer's personal shot.

The book's first photo is a portrait of a mother and daughter taken by William Shaw around 1850, the last is a 1968 landscape by Henry Wessel. Between these dates, you can enjoy looking at some amazing photos (printed as three hundred screen duotones) that are part of the medium's history.