Our Torquay print features the archetypal sixties Torquay postmark, which was used over 6 years from 1963-68.
It taps into the fashion for the flat, light-hearted, mid-century cartoon-style illustration that developed from the mid-late fifties and continued throughout the sixties, and which I particularly associate with northern and eastern continental Europe.
The definitive sixties illustration style
If you search for sixties graphic illustration online, you’ll be swamped with psychodelic swirls and silhouettes of women in mini-skirts, yet for me this pared-down, cartoon-like style is more representative of that decade, and seems fully in tune with the elegant, minimalist, mid-century modern design of furniture and consumer goods for which the sixties are so well known.
Insurance advert, Germany, 1960s. Literal translation: “Hopefully (you were) insured with Allianz if a thief has left you poor.” Thankfully, advertising copy is now a bit snappier.
On this Torquay postmark, a jolly tourist takes centre stage, drawn in just this mid-century cartoon style. Wearing spotted swimming trunks and sunglasses, he relaxes by the sea in the bright sunshine, with one of the Devon resort’s famous palm trees as a backdrop.
If the number of rays drawn on the sky denotes the heat of the sun, then today is a pretty hot day – just ask any young primary-school illustrator.
To add to this atmosphere of fun in the sun, the text uses quirky rustic lettering that somehow makes me think more of the Wild West than the West Country. Perhaps that was deliberate. I wonder whether it would have struck sixties movie-goers that way, familiar as they were with Westerns at the cinema…
Torquay and Paignton were active in promoting themselves using these postal slogans during the sixties, so this is just one of various south-Devon postmarks from the Torbay area which we’re hoping to bring out as prints in the future. Here’s a lovely example from Paignton, also working in one of those south-Devon palm trees.
