A fascinating book for the armchair traveller with several hundred maps created by airline marketing folk. Perhaps not too relevant for fans of real maps because those in the book are basically for sales rather than a realistic view of the world. The seven chapters, or as the book calls them terminals, look historically at airlines from the 1920s onward. I thought some of the early maps, especially in Africa, interesting because there are airports (or perhaps grass strips is more appropriate) in places that fell into obscurity.
There are some wonderful examples of maps that get the full artistic treatment. Page thirty-nine has a superb Pan Am painting of the world by Helguera with the sea, sailing ships, planes and continents painted with the usual symbols for various countries: pyramids for Egypt; Eiffel Tower for France; kangaroos for Australia. These very decorative maps throw up one of the faults of the book, it isn't big enough to reveal the beauty of the many artistic maps.
There are maps or diagrams is a better description where geography is completely absent, pages forty-five (Czech Airlines) and seventy-nine (China Civil Aviation) have graphics of routes and times so complex as to make the information worthless. The Spanish airline Spanair uses a graphic on page 140 that is just pretty decoration placing, for example, New York next to Istanbul and Alicante next to Toronto.
Delightful though the book is it has some editorial flaws so I've given it four stars. As I've mentioned above it should have been bigger but even at the existing size all the maps could have been much larger if the generous page margins were reduced and the text which runs on various pages was all placed on the first few pages.
An interesting book though I'm not quite sure who it's aimed at.The back cover says '...the perfect book for the ever-growing group of non-designers who want some graphic design guidance', yet so much of the contents is very specific and technical to the graphic design profession. On the other hand the sort of breezy way the book is laid out suggests it's aimed at those just starting out on a graphic design career. The 365 rules in the book do provide a ton of information in these chapters: Type and typography; Layout and design; Colour; Imagery and graphics; Production and print; The practice of design. Rule 338 sort of sums it up: Thou shall learn the rules before you break them.
I expect most professionals will argue about some of these rules, I certainly would. Rule 74: 'Thou shall not hyphenate text that is ragged right', mostly correct but for a more even column of ragged type it's is worth hyphenating, especially if the copy relates to a technical subject with lots of long words. Rule 61: 'Thou shall not use negative letter spacing', just tell that to Herb Lubalin (during his lifetime one of the world's greatest graphic designers). I would add a rule or two, put a .05 keyline box on all squared up photos, it gives a crisp edge and avoids white areas in the photo merging into the whiteness of the paper or screen. Avoid using an ampersand if there is room for 'and', the book's cover uses one for no good reason. Consider deleting punctuation in non-narrative copy, use weights of type instead. Avoid using initial caps for each word in a title if it's in u/lc (it mostly applies to book titles)
The book is certainly worth a read (and usefully there is an index) if you have recently started a graphic design career.
At last a book of Large Letter postcards and as far as I'm aware this is the only title that shows off these fascinating cards. There is another book with hundreds and hundreds reduced to postage stamp size but that is for collectors so it can't really be compared to this new book.
What is really good about this title is that the LL cards are reproduced same size as the originals so it's possible to appreciate the amazing variety of background designs and the crazy typography for the names of places and states. There are just over four hundred postcards included and they were all printed and published by Tichnor Brothers in Boston, all their LL cards are here. The company was the second largest printers of postcards in the US after Curt Teich of Chicago.
The forty-eight states are included though for some there is just one card, others like popular tourist states get several, Florida has thirty-seven or New Jersey with fifty-one. Considering that these LL cards have, more or less, a common look with illustrations inside the letters yet each one has a different background with colorful airbrush art in bright colors to catch the eye of a buyer. A nice touch is some detail at the start of each state: capitol; flower; year it joined the Union and on other pages bits of background information about individual cards.
Graphic designers, in particular, will enjoy this book and others will be reminded of receiving, through the mail, greetings from family and friends in the forties and fifties of the last century.
