Vintage Inspiration

I have been searching for new inspiration, well actually it's old inspiration. I have been researching  vintage children's books and prints to help me with some new designs. I love using old textiles and embellishments and it just seems fitting to find some of these lovely old designs to help me create some new ones.

I am especially loving the colour palette and the fonts used by Tove Jansson for the Moomins comic strip. Although as a child I found the stories a little eerie!

For a long time us designers were font snobs and I felt restricted by typefaces, we tended to stick to a nice sans serif font, like Arial or Vervanda but in more recent years those rules seem to have been broken and it's okay to use interesting type at varying scales, to create interesting texture and tone.

I really love the blue typeface used on the PAAS Easter egg colour kit, I wonder what these were for I'd love to get my hands on one. It's probably for some cheap children's toy but I really admire the illustration and how on even cheaper products, time and attention was given to this detail.

I really like the colours in these two book jackets, especially the Sleepy-Time Rhyme book. The illustrations on all the artworks are beautiful and some very stylised, I wonder if we will look back on the book jackets of today with such respect.