Yolk yellow

Along the drab-ish walkway outside my door a spot has been brightened by a big pot of daffodils. It cheers me up.

The bright yolk yellow of those daffodils reminds me of Dick Bruna illustrations. And reminded me of these stamps I ripped off a parcel a few years back (in 2000 it seems) and tucked into one of my many ephemera files. I like to think I’d rip a bit neater these days. I don’t remember what was in the parcel.

Dick Bruna is a favourite illustrator of mine. And one of the (many) things I like about blogging is that it is a mighty fine excuse to go and find what other people have posted about something so personal to you. To find nice related images other people taken. New blogs. New bits of essentially useless information.

On small things like these stamps Bruna’s images define the word sweet. Writ large – as in the Happy Birthday Miffy! exhibition I saw at the (always interesting) Manchester City Art Gallery a few years back – they are amazing. Satisfying blocks of great colours, bold outlines and simple execution means these illustrations work in so many applications. It seems Bruna designed a few sets of stamps for the annual letter-writing day in Japan. I’d certainly author something for an excuse to buy one of these.

Bruna was and is massively prolific. Hundreds of amazing book covers detailed in a very tasty book that I had to buy. Small books in which Miffy visits everywhere from the a zoo to a gallery. The Miffy website is a rather nice, with simple little games to play. There is a Dick Bruna museum in Utrecht too. And although Bruna’s work is now almost ubiquitous – in a Hello Kitty way – it raises its original head, shoulders and perky ears above that kind of Japanese mass merchandise.