Posts in Print

Found a few nice examples of gas company brochures/maps on Kaizen Verdant’s Flickr. Reminds me of one of my favorite’s, the Shell Nature Lovers’ Atlas (second one down).

See Related: Oil Company Ephemera

I am very excited about the work of Sulki & Min. I saw these on but does it float this morning and they jump-started my mind. I’ve been in a bit of a creative funk recently and these posters were just what I needed to get excited about design again. I’m not exactly sure what specifically it was, though I suspect the type lockup in the top right quadrant of the 2nd poster down may have had something to do with it.

I also love the subtle details in the first poster — the line weight of the circle around the D, the differences between the two fours — simple yes, but boring no. (I’m sure some may disagree with me on this, but I can’t help but admire the restraint/confidence it takes to call a poster like this finished.)

Sulki and Min are Korean designers who both got their MFA in design from Yale. They have an astonishing body of work and have been exhibited many times. I am also a big fan of a few of their typefaces designs.

via bdif

Aisle One posted earlier on this incredible Wim Crouwel Archive. The Het Geheugen van Nederland has generously archived over 500 of the Dutch master’s works. Break out your printers, you could probably get some decent prints out of some of these. I have his book but a lot of these are completely new to me.

Via Aisle One

Shailesh Chavda has a beautiful collection of matchbox labels up on Flickr. I have a book of Czech labels but I’ve never seen these German ones. Dave from Grain Edit originally turned me on to matchbox labels when he showed me his collection (I think they were mostly Czech). They’re so incredibly detailed considering the format; most of these would do fine as posters. I think the most striking part to me is the printing, when blown up you can really see that nice grain and spacing in the ink.

Many more great examples can be found here

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

A few killer works by Justin Allen LaFontaine. I had the Up North one on my blog a while back, but forgot how cool it was until today when I was perusing the electronic basement as it were. I wonder where that photo was taken.. Would love to see some recent work by Justin!

Found these prints from an exhibit by Josef Schulz on the basic_sound blog, I thought they were pretty fun looking, would love to see this idea taken even further with different colors and shapes.

I’m definitely getting way into this style right now; what can I say, people are doing some amazing things with type and shapes. These posters are by Quadradao out of Brazil. There is something familiar about the look of course, but I think it’s still fresh in its own way. What I find interesting about it is how much harder it is to design effectively in this style than it looks like. Sure it’s just type and shapes, but try and work something equally refined and see if you don’t go completely nuts.

Couldn’t find too much information on the studio, but from what I can deduce they’re chilling down in Brazil pumping out crazy good posters like these. If I had to guess I would have said these were straight out of the Netherlands.

Combining a polished illustration style with the beautiful mechanics of small arms weaponry, Jonny Wan has created these terrific pieces. I like how he’s reduced the weapons to their most basic parts, while simultaneously adding gorgeous little details here and there. I feel like they would shoot creativity bullets instead of metal ones. His style reminds me of what might happen if you mixed Leandro Castelao and Sanna Annuka in a twisted pot of liquid talent. 2010 is sure to be a great year for Mr. Wan.

I have been flying a rather insane amount over the last few weeks. I complain about a lot of things when I’m traveling: the food, babies, people that insist on stuffing overhead luggage when it will NOT fit, etc. The one thing I have never considered is the boarding pass. Tyler Thompson has written an excellent article on why the boarding pass is indeed worthy of scrutiny. Take one look at the old Delta pass above and you’ll see why. As he states, “It was like someone put on a blindfold, drank a fifth of whiskey, spun around 100 times, got kicked in the face by a mule (the person who designed this definitely has a mule living with them inside their house) and then just started puking numbers and letters onto the boarding pass at random”.

Tyler has done Delta a big favor and redesigned their boarding pass, the design of which you see above. I think it’s obvious that aesthetically, these are much more pleasing to the eye. I would want to hold onto these after my flight was over just because they look awesome. Now of course, the design of a boarding pass has to be more than just beautiful. There are a number of criteria and limitations in place that might prevent your boarding pass from becoming a little piece of art. Worth mentioning in this regard is Timoni Grone’s response to Tylers inital designs. She runs through a meticulous process to come up with a redesign of her own, taking into account all the necessary “practicalities and priorities”.

The cool thing about his project is how he opened it up to others to submit reworkings and suggestions, a few of which he’s posted as you scroll down his page. He’s provided the Illustrator file for download and tweaking. Make sure to head over there and submit yours if you’ve got something brewing. And feel free to sound off if you too feel like the boarding pass design is indeed a fail.

I must say my favorite part of any boarding pass is the little scribbles the security guards make when you pass the initial check at the metal detectors. They do it with such purpose and apparent deliberation, that I think the scribbles must mean something. I always wonder what would happen if I augment their scribbles with scribbles of my own (or scribble before they do). Would I get sent to Homeland Security? Maybe two scribbles on your boarding pass = terrorist. Anyway. I feel safe knowing we have such a complicated system in place.

I could write a similar article about the terrible design of movie tickets, which I feel have slid drastically in the past few years. Since when is a movie ticket printed on receipt paper worth saving? I used to love hoarding all of my movie ticket stubs — now, calling it a “stub” would be an absurd misrepresentation. I call my movie tickets trash.

Thanks @rohrsh