Friday 15 August 2008

Bound and unbound...


Here's a little bit of restoration with a twist - the graphic from the front of the Puffin Post Binder. Old Members will remember that it was shiny metallic gold on a slightly textured red or, later on, pink vinyl folder. This photographed (and scanned) very badly, so I elected to extract it and recreate the look. Isn't it lovely!!

I remember taking exception to the club colour being pink, but looking back through slightly rose coloured glasses, I'm actually quite fond of it now.

For those who are unaware - the classic Penguin book spines were orange (a sign of a dyed-in-the-wool intellectual was a bookshelf bursting with orange spines that were all creased through heavy reading).
Puffin books had a pink spine (except for the wrap-around covers, or those whose artwork demanded a certain coordination) - I'm sure it seemed only natural that the club colour should echo this. As a child my own complete collection of Dr Dolittle books made a big band of unbroken pink on my bookshelves. This helped me get over my pink aversion - just as well considering that I now have two daughters!

The current Puffin spine colour is of course yellow, but whether a future Puffin Club would embrace the colour convention is anybody's guess.

1 comment:

Johnnynorms said...

Ah! The Doctor Dolittles..I think he was a childhood hero - I went around trying to talk to animals until I realised the futility of this, and ended my self-delusion and pleasant naive daydreams. Dr Dolittle's Post Office set me on my puffin reading days in an act of pocketmoney spending serendipity when I dipped randomly in a shop...lucky I didn't pick something really dreary!