Off the Page
This is where we write about the things that led to the drawings in the first place — the history behind a design, the process of getting an illustration from sketch to card or print, and the odd details that make one edition worth collecting over another. Expect notes from the studio in Norfolk, the old covers and reference books we can't stop collecting, and whatever's currently pinned above the drawing desk.
Reading Sideways: A Short History of the Book Spine
For most of their history, books sat on the shelf the wrong way round. Here's how the spine went from hidden hinge to the most-looked-at strip of design in the house.
What a Bottle Label Is Actually Trying to Tell You
A mechanical cat, a nervous queue outside a trademark office, and a four-digit code hidden on every tequila bottle — the odd, regulation-heavy history of what gets printed on a bottle.
The Lion on the Tin: The Design History of Golden Syrup and Black Treacle
A sugar refinery's leftover byproduct, a Bible riddle about a dead lion, and 140 years of packaging that refused to change — the story behind two tins that have been sitting in British larders since Victoria was on the throne.
The History of the Tunnock's Teacake
A biscuit-tin dome of foil and mallow that started life as a solution to sugar rationing — here's how the Tunnock's Teacake became a genuine piece of Scottish design history.
From Sketch to Shelf: How a Design Smith Card Actually Gets Made
The Rasher That Never Was: A History of Frazzles
The Art and Design of VHS Boxes
Blank VHS tape packaging held almost no information — a brand name, a running time, a format — and that emptiness is exactly what made it such strange, brilliant graphic design.
The History of Marmite
How Marmite started as brewery waste, ended up shaping vitamin research, and built one of Britain's most famous ad campaigns out of the fact that people hate it.
Edition Marks, Artist's Proofs, and What the Pencil Marks Actually Mean
What "12/50" actually means, why prints are signed in pencil rather than pen, and what A/P, H/C and BAT stand for on a limited edition print.
The Art and Design of the Postage Stamp
From the Penny Black to the most reproduced portrait in history — how the postage stamp became one of the smallest, most fought-over pieces of design in the world.
A Short History of the Infographic
From a Scottish engineer's bar charts to Florence Nightingale's rose diagrams — where the infographic actually came from, and why the format hasn't really changed.
A Spotter's Guide to Spotter's Guides: The Odd History of the Field Guide
Where the field guide came from, why illustration beat photography for spotting things in the wild, and why the format hasn't really changed since 1937.
