Australian Home Beautiful 1929

Starting with one of the earlier ones I have, as you can see early editions of this magazine are worth finding for the covers alone. Color printing at this time for this type of magazine was reserved for both sides of the front and back covers. The first issue of this magazine appeared in 1925 so this is one of the earliest. It doesn't have a large number of adverts but is full of house designs and floor plans.

The Spanish-influenced home design was a fashionable alternative to the Californian Bungalow here in the 20's and 30's and examples still survive in the older suburbs. Makes me wonder if any of the ones featured in this magazine still exist.

The following article is particularly interesting as it demonstrates how to modernize a Victorian house by creating a flat verandah and removing the cast-iron lacework among other things. Even the finial at the peak of the roof appears to have been removed.

Revisiting this magazine as a more educated person, I noticed the mention of Edna Walling as designer of the garden in the above article. Edna Walling was an influential Australian landscape designer who was ahead of her time. As well as writing books and articles for this magazine, she was also a photographer, house designer/builder and conservationist. Her's is a fascinating story of a strong-willed woman who defied convention. People like this interest me because although they're considered eccentric by most people, they succeed despite the odds. ABC's Gardening Australia ran a story on her and have a web page dedicated to her here: http://www.abc.net.au/walling/

A Bit About The Blog or How I Intend To Waste My Time.

The purpose of this blog is to preserve and share a collection of vintage magazines collected over about ten years. I’ve seen other blogs like this and I thought my collection would be better shared given there are some obscure items and Australian magazines that aren’t already on the web. Within the online vintage scene they may inspire others, whether it’s fashion, interior decorating, or graphic design.

My main reason for collecting was the advertising, and I specifically sought out magazines of a general nature, like home magazines, as apposed to those more specific ones like, for example, Woman’s Weekly. This way the adverts covered a greater range of products from clothes and furniture to cars and washing machines. However, there are some exceptions as I couldn’t resist a glossy fashion magazine full of glamorous photo shoots and adverts. Spending an hour flicking through these is like stepping back in time and being immersed in style and good design, and it was a world I always felt comfortable in. They also informed me about the products available, helped date items I already had, and inspired me to look for items I really liked. I may even post items I own that relate to the adverts or articles and other print material of interest (to me).

I don’t intend to upload every page of a magazine but rather the bits I find most interesting or worthy, therefore some articles may appear broken. However, I will upload the contents page so that if there is something someone would like to see that I haven't uploaded you can request it and if I'm in a good mood I'll think about it and if I'm in a better mood I'll scan it and upload it.

Lastly, I’m not using the latest computer equipment and scanning takes time so posts will be infrequent and irregular depending on my time. To give you an idea, here is a photo of me at my computer:

The woman in the background came with the computer. She is the equivalent of the little animated helper that pops up on your screen when you need it on modern computers.