Imperial Airways Gazette The Future of Empire Services June 1936. No. 6. Vol. 8

Imperial Airways Gazette The Future of Empire Services June 1936. No. 6. Vol. 8

Publisher:
London 1936

Description:
7 pages illustrated 26 cm

Notes:
Title from cover
Printed by Gee & Co.
Back cover shows advertisement for Shell lubricating oil

Acquired from Imperial Airways Ltd, July 1937.

Collection of examples of commercial printing and design including catalogues and books as well as a variety of ephemera such as magazine covers, promotional cards, loose sheets, book plates, book jackets, trade cards, advertisement proofs, wine labels, menu cards etc. Firms include Shell-Mex, Austin Reed, Guinness, Heals, Imperial Airways, Orient Line. Designers include McKnight Kauffer, El Lissitsky, Bawden, Bayer, Gill, Tschichold. Categories of material include architecture, broadcasting, costume, interior design, motor industry, food and drink.

In 1936 the National Art Library decided to lay the foundations of a "collection of commercial typography and to exhibit contemporary specimens from time to time so that the trend of typographic design, both in this country and abroad, could be appraised by students of industrial art". The Keeper of the Library, Philip James was largely instrumental in acquiring the material. The bulk of the collection consists of examples from the 1930s, especially 1936 - 1939, with a smattering of items from the 1940s.
The collection is further supplemented with material from the 1960s which the Library inherited from the Circulation Department of the Museum after its closure in 1978. As these two groups of material stand as historic collections in their own right, any further examples acquired by the Library have been catalogued individually and not added to this designated 'closed collection'.

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