Otl Aicher and the 1972 Munich Olympics
December 19th, 2008Category: Books, Design, Design Legends, Events, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style
Comments: 9
When it comes to my top three most influential designers of all time, the list includes Josef Muller-Brockmann, Wim Crouwel, and Otl Aicher.
Otl Aicher is a legendary designer and one of the most influential graphic designers of the 20th Century. He’s responsible for many incredible designs, but he’s most famous for the work he did for the 1972 Munich Olympics. He created a beautiful and elegant design system on top of a functional grid system for the entire games that covered all visual aspects including posters, books, catalogues, flags, mascots, medals, tickets and stationery.
To honor all this work and to create an ongoing collection, this site was created. The collection includes pieces that span the entire visual identity for the games, many of which I’ve never seen before.
A few months ago an exhibit was held in San Jose California that focused on all the work done by Aicher for the games. What I would have done to have been able to see it in person. If you’re one of the unlucky souls who wasn’t able to visit, there is a Flickr set of the exhibit.
Recently, I’ve become obsessed with obtaining items from the games. Considering that the Olympics happened in the 70’s and it’s become pretty popular among the design community, most of it is hard to find and expensive. I’ve managed to get my hands on a few things, which I’ll be photographing and adding to my Flickr page very soon, but my “holy grail” is Die Spiele (The Games), a 3 volume set covering the design, execution and usage of the entire visual identity for the games. It’s a damn gold mine! I’ve seen it on ebay only 3 times in the last year and all 3 times I’ve lost the auction because the price went too high. I’ll get a set one day. Anyway, here is a nice Flickr set showing the interior pages of Die Spiele. Get a bib because you’re going to drool.
The image above is the from the excellent Blanka Flickr set. You can also see more juicy stuff here and here and in the Otl Aicher Group.
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Alte Haas Grotesk
December 18th, 2008I found this excellent font last night while surfing for old Swiss design books. Alte Haas Grotesk by Yann Le Coroller, is a free Grotesk/Helvetica look-a-like with a soft feel to the edges. The author describes it as a typeface that looks like it were printed in an old Brockmann book. It definitely has that feel to it. I’m looking forward to using this in a design.
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Darren Firth Keeps Me Sane
December 18th, 2008Super talented, ultra nice guy, and cofounder of Six studio, Darren shot me an email about the new look of his personal site Keeps Me Sane. Gorgeous and to think it’s all running on WordPress.
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Lipsumlet Bookmarklet
December 17th, 2008An essential element for any graphic designer, be it print or online, is a block of Lorem Ipsum text. I know for me personally, I can’t function without “Lipsum”, especially since I work in advertising and actually copy isn’t written and approved until long after the design process has begun.
For the last few years, I’ve been using www.lipsum.com for all my Lorem Ipsum needs. The site has some nice features like the ability to select the amount of words, paragraphs, bytes or lists to copy as well as provides a little bit of history on the subject. It’s a nice tool but I really don’t need all those features and to have to load the page each time, highlight the text and copy it can get tiresome.
So I was ecstatic when Matt McInerney emailed me about a sweet little bookmarklet that he’d developed called Lipsumlet. Just drag the bookmarklet into your bookmarks and when you click it, it will spawn a small window with a block of lipsum, automatically copy it to your clipboard and then close the window, all in a matter of 3 seconds. Simple, fast and easy.
And for those of you using Safari (not sure if this works in FireFox), if you drop the bookmarklet into your bookmarks bar, you can quickly access it by pressing the assigned keyboard shortcut. So if you have Lipsumlet as the first bookmark in the bar, you can access it by pressing COMMAND + 1. This makes it even more accessible and saves time.
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Company Updates
December 16th, 2008The folks at the uber-talented London agency have contact me to let me know that they’ve updated their site with a spankin’ new design and a bunch of new work. Love it.
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Penguin on Design Series
December 15th, 2008The Penguin on Design series has been extended with four absolutely gorgeous reissued books on artists Bruno Munari, Marshall McLuhan, Susan Sontag and John Berger.
Yes Design was approached to redesign the covers for the four titles and they did an outstanding job.
I love the simple and minimal design and pure white wasn’t used in the colour palette to create an history feel. Just perfect.
Must. Get. Full. Set!
You can read more at Creative Review.
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Magdalena Czarnecki
December 11th, 2008Yesterday, I received an email from Magdalena Czarnecki that she’d updated her site with new work. I checked it out and was immediately impressed with her work so I told her that I’d post about it today. I wake up today only to find that her work has been posted on many of the popular blogs. So much for being the first but it does prove how good her work is.
Anyway, check out her work, it’s excellent.
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AisleOne Essentials
December 10th, 2008I’m big on books, not only for their aesthetic value but also for their educational value. Duuuuhhhhh!!!!!
Anyway, it think it’s important for any designer to have a good collection of design oriented books from which they can seek inspiration, ideas and knowledge.
So I’ve put together an Amazon store called AisleOne Essentials to act as a single place for all designers to find the most essential books on graphic design, typography and grid systems. These are all “must reads” in my opinion.
The collection will grow over time so keep checking back for the latest books and I also welcome you all to send me suggestions. If you know of a book that should be included please let me know. Thanks.
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Writings on Architecture
December 9th, 2008Another gorgeous book by Bierut’s team at Pentagram. Writings on Architecture is being published in conjunction with the rededication of Rudolph’s newly restored masterpiece, Yale’s Art and Architecture Building.
Also check out this gallery of excellent posters designed by Michael Bierut for the Yale School of Architecture.
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Typographic Posters
December 9th, 2008
Typographic Posters is an excellent site by Andre Felipe that catalogs only graphical or typographical quality poster designs. Any design can apply and then be given access to the site where they can upload their own work.
It’s already shaping up to be an excellent collection with amazing work. Some notable additions include This Studio, David Barath, Michele Genghi, Toko and yours truly.
The poster pictured above is one I’ve been working on but still need to finish.
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Doane Paper Giveaway has Ended!
December 8th, 2008The giveaway has now ended and the winners have been contacted by email. Thanks to everyone for the great response and for participating. I definitely plan to do more of these so stay tuned for more free goodies!
I want to thank again Chad of Doane Paper for supplying the notebooks and making this possible. Thanks!
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FontShop Releases FontShuffle
December 5th, 2008Today FontShop Berlin announced the release of FontShuffle, a type specimen catalog for your iPhone or iPod Touch. When I read this I jumped out of my chair. I’ve been waiting for an app like this since like forever dude! But after downloading it and playing around with it this morning, I’m a little disappointed. First I’ll start off with some of the good things about this app and then I’ll get into the stuff that makes this app fall flat on its face.
