Posts by Scott

Every time I’m at Faye’s Video (btw they’re not just about VHS tapes and employee film ratings, they make awesome espresso too) I notice the cover for Jaques Tati’s Trafic. I’ve never seen the film but the cover art is striking to say the least. I finally decided to look it up to get more info and came across this post at Balduin about the various versions of the poster for international release. While the cover is great, I was really blown away by the titles (second image), that’s got to be my favorite part. Now I’ll have to rent the DVD just so I can screenshot it and print it out.

Via Balduin

Loving this 1967 Pontiac brochure from the Old Car Brochures Archive. Check out that type on the right of each page, so nice.

I haven’t even begun to dig over there but it looks like it gets pretty deep.

Support Structures by Céline Condorelli “exposes an almost complete absence of literature or theory on what constitutes ‘support’,”. Sounds like an interesting concept, but honestly I would buy based on looks alone.

Via BLDG | More Info via Steinberg Press

This is Chicago-based ham radio operator George Ulm’s radio collection. This is just mind blowing; so many beautiful old machines in there. I would have preferred a room full of synthesizers, but this has it’s own thing going on. This is all housed inside a pretty nondescript house in Ulm’s backyard.

More photos and info at QRZ.com

These are some original mock-ups of Cuban posters; painted on boards and then sent to the printers to have the shapes cut out and separated into colors for silk screening. It’s amazing to see how much the printing industry has changed. It seems that back then the printer had a more of a role in the composition itself, defining the edges and choosing the colors. I can’t imagine dropping off a painting at a modern print shop and expecting them to deliver a silkscreened masterpiece based on it.

Via Cuban Posters

These images are taken from a 1970’s era Chinese poster series entitled “Modernization Cannot Be Achieved Without Energy” (click for full versions). I love this illustration style; particularly the technical diagrams. I’m not sure if you can still score any copies, but they were for sale at The East is Red.

Via The East is Red

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System by Paul Shaw — which examines the Helvetica’s role and history in the New York City Subway system — looks like a must have for any design collector. It’s currently sold out of it’s initial limited edition but Shaw’s site says they are looking for a publisher. Let’s hope that works out.

Also not to be missed is David Heasty’s One Color Subway Map featuring, of all things, Helvetica. You may still be able to score a print, details are here.

Via The Daily Heller via Thinking For a Living

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXES_GP36wI

Was reminded of Mercedes’ beautiful 1969 C111 gullwing design after their recent concept unveiling. Beautiful Pictures; I’ll go ahead and file this under “things you can’t have, ever”. I’ve always loved cars; I used to collect die-cast models when I was a kid. I guess I picked the wrong thing to be obsessed with though because it’s becoming increasingly apparent that a 1959 Testa Rossa just isn’t in the cards for me.

I suppose it’s for the best though; nice cars are so impractical and besides, this is the sort of thing that has me dreaming these days. ($8700 MSRP!!! why do you torture us?) I feel like we as designers sort of got a raw deal; we’ll never be able to afford what our taste dictates as acceptable to us (except for that one guy who redesigned the Louis Vuitton monogram maybe? He could probably buy the car and the guy driving it). And then you see MTV Cribs and these people’s houses look like they hired Scarface and the set designer from Full House to do their interiors.

More images here

I’ll be speaking at this year’s FITC in Toronto (April 25-27, 2010). My talk should be on April 26th at 2:30pm, but seeing as it’s still a ways off this may be subject to change. I just got back from Last week’s FITC in Amsterdam (will try and post pics soon) and it really was an incredible event. Toronto should be even better, in my experience over the past couple years it’s a much larger event as it’s held in the home town of FITC. I will be posting more info as it becomes available, you can also check the events page.

Photo via The Chilton Computing Archive

The always excellent Watsonian — who also brought you the Super 8 packaging — have posted these beautiful examples of vintage Kodak film packaging. Every time I see something like this the first thing that pops into my head is “Why doesn’t more commercial packaging look like this anymore?”. I then tell myself “If more commercial packaging looked like this you wouldn’t find it as interesting.” I think that point could be argued but you can’t argue that strictly from a design standpoint, these are just plain better than this crap.

I guess the next question though is whether some kid in 30 years will think the more recent example is better, but I seriously doubt it. I really feel like more attention was paid to the quality of design before the age of computers, I guess the practitioners were just more skilled given the level of training required. Now it’s “have Photoshop will travel”, which obviously cuts both ways. What do you think?

Via The Watsonian (who is apparently a cat)