A quick post to draw attention to some well made 1950s graphic design. Even as the British textile industry was slowly and painfully contracting, the institutions it had bred kept kicking. The Textile Recorder Annual was a trade directory/industry newspaper which invested in what must have been quite expensive commercial art even as their funders’ demise was predicted by their own handiwork. Here is an ad, a cover, and one of the alarming graphs, soothingly presented.

The US version of the Textile Recorder was Textile World, which was graphically brusquer and now much less charming. But it did have a nice big fold out plan of cotton processing.