Currently on at the State Library of Victoria (re-opening today) is the ‘Velvet, Iron, Ashes’ exhibition, which among several other great things contains an excellent selection of items relating to the 1934 MacRobertson air race. The display includes a newsreel highlights, and the promotional poster (seen above) as well as one of the many route…
Category: Ephemera
Camo from the Copy
Today an advertisement thanks to Airminded on Twitter. As well as the proposition (‘call us to camouflage your buildings or they may get bombed’, – definitely not a “nice factory, be a shame if something HAPPENED to it” angle of course!) the aircraft caught my eye. It’s not a German type, despite the prominent Swastika…
Wing Badges n’ Things
Today we have an accidental product of my job, reporting on aviation preservation worldwide. Relatively recently, two major transport, technology and heritage collections on opposite sides of the world changed their logos. The Shuttleworth Collection, in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire, UK, adopted a newly designed brand logo: I immediately though it seemed familiar (though there was no…
Firebomb Fritz
A wartime British defensive propaganda character (mostly forgotten today) was ‘Firebomb Fritz’. Here in colour: …and here in black and white, both by Reginald Mount. (Original UK National Archives caption: “Fritz in Nazi bomber” by Reginald Mount, 1942 Catalogue ref: INF 3/1421. The cartoon depicts determined (but subservient) looking German air force men flying towards…
Bonny Bonney
There’s been a few ‘Google doodles‘ featuring aviators to date, and a current one features Australian Aviatrix Lores Bonney. Maude Rose ‘Lores’ Bonney, (20 November 1897 – 24 February 1994) was the first woman to fly solo from Australia to England. The image is, in fact, animated, and the background to the story of the…
Visibly Invisibly Wonderful
By special request, today we have Wonder Woman‘s invisible jet. The toy above (image from here on Flickr) represents one vision of invisibility, while the still from the TV series is quite different below, and almost could relate to the popular plastic model kits with see through structures often touted as the ‘Visible ‘or ‘Invistible’…
Get A Pilot Husband
Today’s cover illustration, The Australian magazine Woman’s Day and Home, November 20, 1950. Often unintentional ironies appear in coverline clashes in magazines, but this one has also become slightly more intense with time. A little serious insight to the reality behind being a ‘cover star’. Doug Morrison writes “Old friend Max Garroway 2nd from right….
To the Airport Of Yesteryear
Today’s an airport hotel, a retro effort that my good friend August Horvath brought to my attention on Instagram here. His comment: “I don’t know if the crazy @twahotel venture at @jfkairport will succeed, but it sure is done in style. From the elevator that pretends to be a time machine, to the access tube,…
Vimy Ere – Here!
Today a slightly detailed and slightly-serifed set of letters, almost an abstract design. Because also today, 100 years ago, four young men lifted off in their aircraft from Hounslow aerodrome near London at 8 am on 12 November 1919, and headed to their homeland, Australia, literally on the other side of the world. They’d just…
Plane Wallpaper
Another first today, original wallpaper Shared by Don Richardson on America in the 1940s Facebook group, this is a real insight to a really forgotten vernacular household style. Don stated: “We were repairing a water leak in our old house today and found this wallpaper way down deep!” The Statue of Liberty looks like a…
A Year of Aviation Illustration & Art 