Paul Thurlby
(Templar)
There is no narrative in this beautifully-packaged large format picture book from Templar, but rather an alphabetical succession of prints for each letter of the alphabet. This is much more than a picture book, and although children will enjoy it immensely, this is the kind of illustrated book that will undoubtedly appeal to adults. Fans of retro-style, illustration, design, 1950s posters and 1950s style in general will relish in those cleverly designed prints. As Paul Thurlby explains at the end of the book, his brief was to fuse the object of the word with the shape of the letter. His print for Trapeze is a great example of how well the illustrator has achieved this, and so is the print for Island, which is on of my personal favourites; I just love the combination of colours in it:
Although the style looks simple, there are a lot of details to pour over. I love the aged look of each illustration and the thick slightly beige paper used helps brings an overall fantastically vintage ambience to the book. Interestingly, Paul Thurlby originally created these prints and posted them on his Flickr photostream. They attracted huge amounts of interest and after being shared on many design blogs, they were eventually discovered by and agent . The prints were made available in postcard and poster format and are now available in this beautiful book.
It is easy to see why Paul Thurlby’s work has become so sought after; his unique design and original take on each letter of the alphabet help create a fantastically unusual picture book which will be fun for little readers and will be much admired by their parents.
Definitely one to treat yourself to, even if you have no little people in your life!
You can visit Paul’s website here as well as his photostream on Flickr, where you will find many new alphabet prints, inlcuding this one which really caught my eye (check out the Reading one as well!):
Thank you to Paul Thurlby for letting me use his images. All images, of course, are © Paul Thurlby.
Many thanks to Templar for providing a review copy of “Paul Thurlby’s Alphabet”.
(j’espère que tu ne m’en voudras pas si j’écris en français!)
je suis super contente d’apprendre grâce à toi la parution de cet album! j’adore ces lettres, ce graphisme, je connaissais depuis un petit moment et je suis vraiment ravie que ça paraisse enfin!
Gawou!!!!!
Le livre est vraiment très beau; je ne connaissais pas du tout avant, maintenant je suis fan :0) Et puis avec celui-là, pas besoin d’attendre la traduction. Il sort le 1er juillet !