AisleOne. A visual journal on design, photography, film, music and culture.
Rudolph de Harak (1924-2002) was a legendary American graphic designer who is well-known for his book cover designs for McGraw-Hill during the 50s and 60s. A modernist at heart, de Harak also designed record covers for Columbia and Westminster, as well as these lovely clocks.
After some quick searching, I found this Flickr group dedicated to him.
Ikko Tanaka (1930–2002) was an influential Japanese graphic designer who combined Japanese tradition with the International Typographic Style to form a style of his own. He’s most known for this 1981 poster for a Nihon Buyo dance performance, in which he created an abstract geisha using basic geometric forms placed on a simple grid.
Simply perfect 1968 ad for Sunn Amplifiers. After a quick search I found some more.
Fantastic collection of German matchbox labels from the 1960s and 1970s. Simple graphics and beautiful color palettes.
Not many have heard of Benno Wissing (1923-2008), but in my book he goes down as one of the greatest designers of the last 100 years. Along with Ben Bos and Wim Crouwel, he founded the influential studio, Total Design. Wissing also worked as a painter, illustrator, set designer and architect, but is best known for his signage design for Schiphol Airport in 1967. In the 80’s he was invited to be a professor of design at the Rhode Island School of Design.
The excellent site NAGO has a massive gallery of Wissing’s work. I still haven’t had the time to get through it all — I’m only on page 8. Also, check out the monograph Benno Wissing: Grafische & ruimtelijk ontwerpen.
These beautiful and mysterious Pan Am posters were designed in 1971 by Chermayeff & Geismar. What’s remarkable about these posters — other than the minimal design and the use of Helvetica — is the power of the photography. The simple, sometimes monocromatic, images make a clear statement about the location and inspire the viewer. You can see a few other examples here and here.
DCrit student Frederico Duarte did a little digging and discovered some interesting info about the posters. You can read the story on the Eye Magazine blog and in a feature.
