doverpictura blog

What the heck is DoverPictura anyway?

DoverPictura is an unrivaled source of rare collections of royalty-free digital graphics. We take a highly geeky approach to collecting, organizing and selling our graphics, and in this, we've taken our lead from the folks who started Dover, Hayward and Blanche Cirker. 

      The Cirkers were collectors extraordinaire, insatiably curious over a vast spectrum of subjects– and they were hopeless bibliophiles. They surrounded themselves with sharp minds, with sharp eyes, and through these folks' tireless efforts were able to acquire an enormous collection of the most curious and eclectic graphic materials, which are housed in what we all call– the Archive. The Archive combines the feel of the stacks of a venerable old library, a crazy old hoarder's attic and the chaotic sprawl of a Saturday afternoon ephemera show. 

It kind of looks like this, but a little dustier and without the nice ceilings.....

The best news is that, like an iceberg, you're only seeing about 10% of what we've got— great things lie below the surface…the best is yet to come... 

Every week curators are dispatched into the Archive for the sole purpose of distilling (to confuse the metaphor further) the most delicious, ambrosial extractions.  At DoverPictura, we don't focus solely on individual images, we think and organize in compendiums, taxonomies—veritable treasure chests! We believe that the presentation of individual images within a context of it's peers (however that may be construed) can be a great goad to creativity, and helps to engender a rich creative ferment. For you, the image-addict, this means that when you come to the site you're always going to find fresh and fascinating new constellations of images for your crafts and graphic arts projects. 

Here's a sampling of a few of the collections we hope to have coming your way sometime soon:

Images extracted from Gaspard Lavater's somewhat bizarre treatise from 1820, conflating human and animal face types, 'The Art of Knowing Men by Their Faces'. That bunny page is looking pretty good heading into Easter…

A rare portfolio collection of Chinese and Burmese tea crate labels. You'll not be finding these elsewhere.

A superb collection of old Moravian (Slovakian and Czechish) patterns. Most probably these were used for embroidery making, but because many of these are repeatable we think that they're are going to very useful in all sorts of graphic applications.

Well, that's all for this time out. I'll be posting again soon!