Vintage Steam: A Dust Wrapper for Dinny Donovan

In 1967 the notorious! Dinny Donovan (no relation of mine) was managing director of the Caxton Press, Christchurch, a company with whom I had quite a lot of doings.

Dinny asked me to design and execute a dust wrapper for 'Vintage Steam by Frank Roberts. There are two interesting things about this job :

Firstly, I decided to illustrate one of the old locomotives as a stylized side elevation on the cover. As the engine was a horizontal shape, I turned the cover ninety degrees - an unusually daring departure in those days. Secondly, I never gave Dinny a rough design to approve but went directly to finished artwork. I did a basic drawing of the engine and other black portions of the design and then two black 'Kodatrace' overlays, one for gold and the other for red. Only after it was printed could you see how the finished design would look.

Dinny had great faith and the dust wrapper worked out just fine.

These days the whole thing would be done on my iMac. Computers didn't exist in those days and I doubt if 'Kodatrace' exists nowadays. But the mere mention of the word will bring a tear to any old designer aged over 70!

© DON DONOVAN
donovan@ihug.co.nz
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New Zealand Odyssey: Pegasus Press, 14 Oxford Terrace, Christchurch

'New Zealand Odyssey', published in 1989 by Heinemann, was authored by me, Don Donovan (who did the text and illustrations) and Euan Sarginson, who did the photography and design. In this series of blog posts, I will publish some of my drawings.

I've known this beautifully proportioned place for fifty-one years. It was the home of Pegasus Press and was the fiefdom of Albion Wright a rascal who lived and breathed publishing. His office was the two windows on the right of the entrance, a dark, cosy room lit by a table lamp, reeking of cigar smoke and whose coffee table was a pattern of rings left by beer and whisky glasses. 

A printing office was at the back, run by Peter Low, where I used to go to buy printing for my company and take the opportunity to linger with the compositors and machinists - I've always loved printing works and publishers.

This watercolour was done in about 1987. The company was later sold. I don't know what happened to Pegasus or the building.

© DON DONOVAN

donovan@ihug.co.nz

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