Inspiration: Biology and Charley Harper (Mostly Mr. Harper)

Where does inspiration come from? I think biology is interesting, but I was never able to wrap my brain around all the names of the parts or processes. What really drew me in were the graphics, charts and illustrations. Designers organize information, good designers turn information into art. Kind of like Charley Harper.

EXPLODING WITH STICKY NOTES TO MARK A FUTURE INSPIRATION FIX

Golden produced mountains of books for children (remember The Poky Little Puppy?), so they had a pretty good idea of what drew children in. Hint: It wasn’t biology. Golden commissioned talented artists to make great images and then added lots of color.

CELLS AS MODERN ART

A GRAPHIC VIEW OF THE HYDRA REPRO DANCE

TEXTURE AND LINE SWING IN AN INK AND PAPER JUNGLE

AN ANCIENT OCEAN OF MYSTERIOUS SHAPES

These are just a few of the reasons why this book inspires me. Another reason: When my son spied it on the scanner, he said “Hey cool. Can I read this?”

The Giant Golden Book of Biology, An Introduction to the Science of Life.
By Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler, illustrated by Charles Harper.
Copyright 1961, Golden Press Inc.

Want to see more Charley Harper art? Click: Prints

Tags: Charles Harper, Charley Harper

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 9th, 2010 at 9:46 am and is filed under inspiration, just for fun, on design. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.