Bird Man. Birds and Berries in my Grandmother’s Garden.West Webster, N.Y. E.H. Reiber, 1920.
via: The Internet Archive
The Art of Book Design: Birds and Berries in my Grandmother’s Garden
Affinity
Art, Fun, & Nonsense.
Bird Man. Birds and Berries in my Grandmother’s Garden.West Webster, N.Y. E.H. Reiber, 1920.
via: The Internet Archive
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I think this is overall an examle of poor book design. The depiction of leaves and berries, which I can’t identify, is pretty enough, but then they go and put the letters of Grandmother under it so you can’t read all of it. Very odd.
Jazzlet,
You’re right.
I was drawn to the leaves and berries, but it is a bit odd, isn’t it? It almost looks as if it’s been printed off-kilter and the lettering is meant to be farther right.
I wonder if it was printed in two separate processes, the person doing the letters got the job first, looked at the instructions and thought “nah, that offset can’t be right, I’ll just centre the title”, then once it was done some manager said “we can’t afford to throw out all of these, just print the branch over the letters”?
I think the plant shown is supposed to be Virginia Creeper (Parthenocissus quinquefolia), a common vine in the eastern US (I have some growing up trees in my little grove of trees next to the driveway). Often regarded as a weed, but I consider it rather pretty and certainly far preferable to poison ivy or the invasive Asian bittersweet vines.
Ah, thank you springa! I’ve seen Virginia creeper in the UK, but I don’t think it fruits here, at least it didn’t in my grandmother’s Oxford garden.