illustrate

The catalog record for these two oversize British editions, published in the 1930s by an oil company, doesn’t do justice to the plentiful color illustrations of aircraft, engines, and their interior structure. The illustrations include several flip-up sections that reveal the aircraft “insides” and would be appreciated by audiences of any age who want to view this almost 90 year old “modern” technology.

This book, with examples of 1935 French advertising design, is part of the Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Library’s Special Collections materials on typography and graphic design. With text, design, and layout by Alex Pinon, this volume is a fascinating look into advertising typography by one of the leading French type foundries of the period. Alex Pinon (1900-1961) started his career in typography and fashion illustration after the First World War; during the 1950s he was a prominent cover illustrator of bestsellers of popular literature.

James Bateman (1811-1897) was a renowned horticulturist, specifically focused on orchidology. He was a highly regarded researcher and landscaper who promoted the analysis and cultivation of flowers and hosted several scholarly expeditions to Mexico and South America.

This book takes an illustrative scientific approach towards understanding how interwoven conditions such as hydrology, oxygen levels, and plant canopies impact the types of species that can be found in freshwater wetlands. These ‘abiotic’ factors contribute to the overall development and adaptation of microorganisms, invertebrates, vertebrates, and plants in wetlands. Even with the scientific approach, The Biology of Freshwater Wetlands is easy to read for researchers, students, and others interested in ecology.

This beautiful coffee table book book is signed by the author, Jonathan Green of South Carolina. It contains 108 color portraits and paintings, with captions describing each work of art. The first thirty pages share a biography of the artist and describe his life’s work. The rest of the book is devoted entirely to nothing but beautiful art. The images depict the artist’s upbringing. He was raised on a farm in Gullah country, the coastal areas of South Carolina and Georgia, inhabited by the descendants of freed slaves from the area. 

The eponymous “stubborn dirigible,” Zep, goes against orders during a flight in order to save his crew and passengers from a terrible storm in this children's book. In the wake of many zeppelin disasters in the 1930s—both in America and abroad—this book resists disaster and excites the young imaginations who looked to the sky for inspiration and adventure. Published by Rand McNally and Company in 1935, The Stubborn Dirigible was one of many children’s books released by the famous cartographic corporation.