I wasn’t too sure about the Tate Modern when it first opened. I think that was because I was still very much in love with the Pompidou in Paris, which is still my favourite museum. So on my first visit to the new Tate Modern, shortly after it opened, all I did was compare it to the Pompidou and complain about the room of poo (still not a fan). But over the years it’s slowly grown on me and now I love it. As well as the museum collection itself (apart from the poo), I love the building and I love the bookshop which in a dream world I would transplant to my house. But I guess having it easily accessible along the South Bank is just as good. I normally spend all my time in there looking at the books, but when we went yesterday (to see the Cy Twombly exhibit – separate post later) I wandered over to the card section. And I think, as well as having the best book collection, they might also have the best cards. Here’s just a couple of the companies they stock (more on the others later)…

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we are family design

quirky & eco-friendly too, they’re all printed in Britain with vegetable based inks on FSC, chlorine free paper. who knew you could make a nice pattern out of sprouts?!

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rose hip cards

the notebooks are on recycled paper but not sure about the cards. these weren’t the designs they had at the tate but they’re lovely all the same

So I thought I’d write a little bit about Angie Lewin who I’m thinking is probably pretty well known but she was the first surface designer whose work I could actually recognise. So I’d feel quite smug pointing out her cards and notebooks in a shop, knowing full well in the back of my head that it was probably a bit like pointing out a Picasso or Warhol – pretty obvious really. But there you go, I’m learning and Angie has a definite distinct style that is very easily recognisable even if you are a bit of a novice.

Angie studied at Central St. Martins College of Art and Design and Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts. She works in a range of printmaking techniques including lithography, silkscreen and etching and more recently lino and woodcut and wood engraving. Her designs are mostly botanical and they have a retro feel to them which I think comes from the areas of flat colour. The colours she uses are really beautiful, muted and saturated blues, pinks, yellows and greens.

We’ve got some really lovely card shops on our local high street (Oliver Bonas and Zeitgeist) where I’m pretty sure I had seen Angie’s cards, but it wasn’t until Jeff bought me a couple of her notebooks for Christmas (which I can’t bring myself to use) that I actually knew her name. Since then I’ve found quite a few excuses to buy boxes of her notecards – much cheaper than buying separate cards every time, right?! Next step is obviously prints and textiles, but how to choose…

see more by Angie here – www.angielewin.co.uk

have a look at Oliver Bonas here – www.oliverbonas.com

Julia also has a really interesting blog on book illustration – Book By Its Cover – I’ve only just discovered it but it looks like it will become one of my regular reads. She also has a design agency with a brilliant website – Also – that looks to do really lovely work.

see Julia’s website here – www.juliarothman.com

read her book blog here – www.book-by-its-cover.com

My favourite ranges are The Good Life:

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PushMePullYou:

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Suki:

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and the Melvyn Evans address books and notebooks:

see & buy more lovely stuff from 1973 here – www.nineteenseventythree.com