Cartoon Modern shouldn’t really exist. A lot of things had to go exactly right for this book to ever get made, and I’m frankly still amazed that this title ever made it print. I’m even more amazed that it has had three printings, and that it won the Theatre Library Association Award in 2007.
There’s a lot more story to tell about how the book came about, but I’ll save that for another time. However, I did recently run across a list of proposed titles for the books, which I’m sharing below. At the time, no one anticipated that the book would name an entire movement, so suffice to say, I am thankful we did not choose one of the sillier titles. For the record, my personal pick was the first one – The Cartoon Moderns – and in the end, we got very close to that.
- THE CARTOON MODERNS
- THE ANIMATED MODERNS
- CARTOON MODERNISM: STYLE AND DESIGN IN 50S ANIMATION
- DESIGN DELUXE
- McCARTHY-ERA MOTIONS
- MODERN MOTION
- DADDY-O DESIGN
- NEAT-BEAT-DESIGN
- COFFEE HOUSE GRAPHICS
- DESIGN YOU CAN TRUST
- BABY BOOM BEAUTIFUL
- BLACK-&-WHITE COLOR
- SHARPS AND FLATS: MODERN DESIGN IN THE POPULAR CULTURE OF THE FIFTIES
- WHEN “MODERN” MEANT “NEW”: DESIGN IN THE FIFTIES
- THE HEAD WITH LEGS: 50S DESIGN
- FAUVIST FIFTIES
- HEAVY LINES, HAPPY TIMES
- I WAS A COMMUNIST FOR THE ART DIRECTOR’S CLUB
- FABULOUS FORMS
- INDUSTRIAL COOL
- REAL ‘BOP’ CORN
- ESCAPED FROM GRAPHIS
- ELVES WITH ANGLES
- VERTICES VIVACE
- SHAPING TIME
- ALL IN LINES
- MOVING SPACES
- STYLED SPACE
- DESIGNED FOR LAUGHS: STYLIZATION & MODERNISM IN 50S ANIMATION
- DESIGNED TIME
- TIME DESIGNED
- DESIGNED IN TIME
- STYLE IN TIME
- TIME OF STYLE
