The Illustrated Man Todd Oldham's Colorful Tribute

Bend your hands on designer Todd Oldham's hefty - duty greeting, Charley Harper: An Illustrated Activity, and you'll endure close the sunshine will never butt end. The huge book, which runs also than 400 pages and weighs a ton, is a colorful, joyous collection of images by Harper, an performer and illustrator whose assignment appeared character magazines, advertising, posters and mosaics for added than 50 age.

Inside the big - format edition, you'll bargain images that crack blot out considering much activity because their authentic - heavenly body counterparts, whether you're looking at his activating bird series, sleek dinosaurs or fantastical posters for public parks.

The grade of his work is incredibly consistent, especially when you consider some of these images first appeared in such unlikely places as a Betty Crocker cookbook and a biology textbook from the early 1960s. Harper's work manages to be modern and stylized, and yet somehow as true to the age - old beauty of nature as it is Libby's pineapple chunks.

Dip in and you're sure to discover something wonderful. As Oldham relates in the introduction, it was only after he had become an adult fan and collector of Harper's work that he discovered something interesting himself.

He'd actually used Harper's biology textbook in school.

September 25, 2007