Projects

British Blonde examines postwar Britain through the changing ideals of femininity that shaped the nation’s cultural atmosphere in the twenty-five years following the Second World War. At its centre are four figures whose stories open onto broader questions of class, desire and visual culture: Diana Dors, Ruth Ellis, Barbara Windsor, and the Pop artist Pauline Boty. Reading their lives meant finding a visual language equal to their presence. Portrait photographs of each woman were converted into bitmaps, the halftone dot enlarged and overlaid on a matte gold Pantone — a device that runs through the book as a section divider and as a register for the period’s particular relationship between image, glamour and reproduction. GT Super Text carries the body, GT America Extended Bold the headings. Printed 4×4 plus one Pantone on Magno Volume 150gsm, with a Sirio Pearl Gold dust jacket printed with a halftone screen in black and light gold foil typography.