Volkswagen Literature 1938 – 2005
September 3rd, 2010Here’s a great find by Paul Soulellis. A massive online gallery of Volkswagen product literature dating back to 1938. Some real gems in there. You can get lost in it for days.
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Oppositions Magazine 1973 – 1984
August 25th, 2010Oppositions was an architectural journal by the Institute For Architecture And Urban Studies that was published from 1973 to 1984. The magazine was designed by the great Massimo Vignelli and it sure doesn’t disappoint with its obvious grid layout. This Flickr set includes a bunch of the covers, some of which feature black illustrations, and this set by Paul Soulellis has some shots of the inside spreads.
I was outbid on a copy of this a few months back. Would have made a great addition to my collection — maybe I’ll start to obsessively search for them now.
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Toko
August 23rd, 2010Sydney based studio, Toko, has been one of my favorites for a while now. They’re always pumping out fresh new work that’s inspiring. They updated their site with a new look and a plethora or work.
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Sunn Amplifiers 1968
August 22nd, 2010Category: Advertising, Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style
Comments: 2
Simply perfect 1968 ad for Sunn Amplifiers. After a quick search I found some more.
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Benno Wissing
July 26th, 2010Not 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.
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The International Office is Back
June 25th, 2010Well, not sure they went anywhere. Their site seemed to be down for a few months and I thought they closed up shop. Glad to see they’re still rockin’ it. They have a new site up with a bunch of great new work.
Be sure to head over to September Industry for some high-res images of their work.
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Pan Am Destination Posters
June 16th, 2010These 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.
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Georg Staehelin
April 28th, 2010Category: Design, Grid Systems, International Typographic Style, Typography
Comments: 3
Interesting series of typographic posters by Georg Staehelin for the Museum of Design in Basel. I did a little searching and couldn’t find any info on Mr. Staehelin. If anyone has any info, I’d love to learn more about him.
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Bauen+Wohnen
April 13th, 2010Bauen+Wohnen / Building+Home / Construction+Habitation was a Swiss architectural magazine that existed from. Richard Paul Lohse was responsible for the design from 1947 – 1956, and in 1952 he designed a special version for the German market that featured his trademark overlay style.
A recurring theme that I’m beginning to notice with classic Swiss Style design is the use of color to identify each magazine issue. Helmut Schmid also did it with his redesign of Die Neue Gesellschaft, and we’ve seem to have lost this simple, but beautiful approach to visual identity. You really don’t see this type of thinking with mainstream publications today. Instead, you’re bombarded with headline-cluttered covers that confuse you instead of inviting you. There are exceptions, though.
Anyway, this collection designed by Lohse is breathtaking and upon seeing these covers I’ve immediately begun the hunt to find them. Joe Kral has uploaded his collection to his Flickr Page and you can get more info on the magazine here and here.
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New Posters on Blanka’s Flickr
April 2nd, 2010The stuff that gets added to Blank’s Flickr page always leaves me amazed. I have no idea where they get all this vintage work from. They’ve recently updated their page with a ton of posters by Hans Neuburg, Herbert W. Kapitzki, Armin Hofmann and Josef Müller-Brockmann, many of them I’ve never seen before.
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Wim Crouwel Archive
March 30th, 2010This is one of those online gems that only come around once a year.
This Dutch site contains an archive of over 500 original designs by Wim Crouwel, most of which I’ve never seen before and that I think are some of his best. Pure brilliance. What’s even better is that there’s a sharp, hi-res version of each. Picking one out of the bunch to display here was a really tough decision.
You will get lost in this for hours, I guarantee it. If the link doesn’t work just search for Wim Crouwel.
If anyone can give me more info on the site and the collection, I’d be very grateful.
