“Live where you like!” ad for the National Building Society

Over the Points was a well produced quarterly review “of matters concerning the Southern Railway” that was issued to first class season ticket holders during the 1930s. For many years edited by the travel writer E.P. Leigh-Bennett, the magazine was printed for the SR at the exemplary Curwen Press in Plaistow, London, and the issues show much of the Press’s consideration of design, layout, tyefaces and typography. This includes many of the adverts – both “in-house” and external and the magazine is illustrated with vignettes relevant to the text matter, many by Victor Reinganum.

This is taken from the June 1934 issue that details many of the Southern’s extensive and lucrative Cross-Channel ferry services upon which they operated their own fleet of steamers and ferries. This advert, with extensive use of an interesting typeface, Koch-Antiqua, is for the London based building society “the National”. It has a “live where you like!” illustration that shows the ‘Home Counties’ served by the Southern – Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire, Berkshire, and Kent and that is on close examination wonderfully detailed. You can just make out the initials “C W B” – Cecil W. Bacon, one of the finest scraperboard and engraving artists of the day and whose work was extensively commissioned for advertising.