Thanks to Dick Briel for his contributions of the work of Eppo Doeve.

The paperbacks measure 18 by 11 cm and are both from 1962.

 

Eppo Doeve was very much of the generation of highly professional illustrator/designers who could, and did, tackle a wide range of commissions, with Eric Fraser as his closest comparison in the UK. The jacket for The Day of the Triffids has the precision of drawing, the drapery style and back-lighting of Fraser's illustrative style.

 

The Winterboek has a characteristically simple visual message, reduced to simple and effective stylisations of natural forms with uneasy interventions of letterforms. As in all Doeve's work, standards of drawing of figure on ground are very high.

This generation was trained before systematic education in the design basics became a commonplace, with eccentric letterforms , highly personal colours and great ingenuity of visual solutions. Like many of this generation, his work fell out of favour in the 1960's but certainly deserves re-appraisal today.