Lovely set of faux book covers created by Julian Montague as a tribute to vintage McGraw Hill books.
Tag: vintage
The American Poster
Not only does the movie seem like it’s going to be great, but the poster is really well done in my opinion. Designed by Mojo House, the design is reminiscent of the minimal style seen during the 60s, but with a modern touch. The paper is even distressed to give it an authentic feel.
Here’s a good write up on the poster, with some nice examples of original posters from the 60s.
Project Thirty Three
Project Thirty Three is a fantastic blog that features vintage album covers that have been scanned and archived by the owner of Seattle based used vinyl store, Jive Time Records. Lovely.
Laurent Nivalle Photography
French photographer Laurent Nivalle has a stunning portfolio, but it’s his Le Mans Classic series that just blows my mind. The mix of vintage race cars, and the faded colors trick you into believing that these are photos from the 60s. The crops and compositions are just perfect, and the buttery shallow depth of field make the images irresistible. Makes me miss DSLRs. Laurent does also have an excellent gallery iPhone photography.
L’Esigenza Della Velocità
Buddy Carr Skateboards just released L’Esigenza Della Velocità, a new longboard that I designed for them. The board features an innovative flush mount truck system that lowers the deck height, giving the rider better stability and control.
In Italian, “L’Esigenza Della Velocità” means “The Needs for Speed”, and that’s were I pulled most of my inspiration from. I’ve always been inspired by the beautiful graphic design and gorgeous color palettes present on racing cars from the 60’s and 70’s, and I tried to pay tribute to that minimal aesthetic is this design. It represents a time when graphic design was simpler and not bloated like it is today.
For the colors, I’ve been wanting to use a fluorescent Pantone for sometime now and the color Pantone 805 seemed to make sense for this piece. Coupled with a dark gray, I think it created a nice modern touch to the retro design. 805 is stunning in person.
For the layout, I composed the elements using the Golden Ratio. Might seem like overkill for something like this but it presented a pretty interesting composition that felt balanced to me. Here’s a screenshot of the guides in my Illustrator file that I created using the Golden Ratio. Because of the limited space on skateboards, I usually end up cropping elements to create a more interesting visual. I tried layouts where all the elements lived within the space, but that felt too unnatural and claustrophobic. Having elements bleed off the skateboard gives a sense of openness that I prefer. The checkered flag graphic and 805 color are continued onto the wheels to give the package a unified look.
When it came time to think about the typography, I knew that I wanted to design a typeface myself. Taking inspiration from vintage racing graphics, I designed a sans-serif that exhibits contemporary features, but that still retains that vintage feel. At least I think it does. My plan is to create a full typeface out of this, but we’ll see how that goes.
As with the other boards I’ve designed for Buddy, this was blast to do and I’m looking forward to creating some new designs for the lineup. We’re already in early phases of a new deck that continues this retro race aesthetic. Stay tuned!
For more pictures of the Velocita board, and to buy one, head over to the Buddy Carr site.
Todd Richardson Photography
When I first saw Todd Richardson’s photos, I was in amazement on how similar his style is to mine. The color tones, subject matter, and composition is eerily close to my work. So it’s not a surprise that I absolutely love his work.