Posts in Print

This series of images by Dietmar R. Winkler appeared in Graphis 71-72.  It is perhaps the most perfect thing I have ever seen.  I would love to reproduce this and print it up large format for my wall.  Does anyone know where to find an original full size version? I am posting this from a KFC in Prague at the moment (sadly, it’s the only free WiFi spot in the area), will be posting some pictures soon.

Been posting so much photography lately thought I’d throw in some design related stuff that was also travel related.  This has to be the best airline tag I’ve ever seen.  Love the "SR" type on the back side.  When I saw cool stuff like this back when I was a kid I would always try to take the whole stack.  I ended up with boxes of it by the time I left home for college.  I think the majority got tossed out over the years, no big tragedy though, I grew up in California so none of it was anywhere near this good. Image via alistairh on Flickr.

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I found this a while back and thought today would be as good as any to post it. Happy Holidays!

"As illustrated by this chart from the latest issue of Seed, the star patterns we see in Jewish,  Islamic and Bahai design reflect how simple rules can give rise to complex patterns, such as the Sierpinski Triangle (lower left) and Koch curve (upper right) fractals.  The intrinsic bond between faith and geometry has fascinated religious philosophers for centuries, from Pythagorean mysticism and the Kabbalah to Islamic design and the Gospel of John.  In fact, as we’ll be exploring more in depth on my other site, the word "logos" can be translated both as "word" and "ratio."  Via The Blingdom of God

Been busy getting prepped for the holiday… Just some quick flickr goodness here.  Will be back tomorrow to do some proper posts.

I was having a conversation the other night with some designer friends and we were trying to come up with a name to encapsulate this style (example by Erik Nitsche).  I have heard it generally referred to as "modernism" but we wanted something a bit more specific.  In particular it should refer to this sort of subject matter; mid-century technical manuals, industry literature, signage, World’s Fair campaigns, Olympics campaigns; basically any design commissioned by an institution or by a company, like General Dyanmics, who doesn’t market directly to the public.  I suggested "Institutional Modernism" and I think "Industrial Modernism" was thrown around. 

So is there an established term for this sort of design?  This seemed like a very unique time in history when a large amount of money and talent were directed at projects which weren’t corporate ad campaigns directly targeted at the general public.  I think this fact alone shaped the output and resulted in some of the best graphic design the world may ever see. Whatever the case may be it’s designs like these, more than anything else, that have influenced and informed my own application of typography. It seems that no one has done it better before or since.

FYI: As Vytis quickly pointed out, the headline reads "Atomy na sluzhbi myra" – Translated: “Atoms – serving the world” In a servant-master way…"

Some really nice record sleeves, absolutely love the top one.  There’s a bunch more to look at over here. Via FFFFOUND

Saw this on FFFFOUND and thought it was interesting. It was just an image named "Pythagorean Tree" so I looked that up on wiki and found this.  I recently saw some pictures of plates with these super detailed illustrations of owls on them, all done in that fractal style.  The tree reminded me of them, does anyone remember the plates I am talking about?  They’ve been making the rounds on design blogs for a while now.

Found this one at NAGO (Nederlands Archief Grafisch Ontwerpers).  Some other very nice images there.

Not sure what this is exactly… In flight brochure?  Not too keen on the illustration but the header/type is spot on.
Image via Anthony Mark

Interesting Cretive Review piece about Olympic Logos:
"With the enormous barrel of nastines currently being dumped all over the London 2012 logo, we wondered what the reception might have been for some of its predecessors had they been released today. What comments, for example, might the Herr in the strasse have come out with when confronted with design’s holiest of holies, the Munich 1972 logo?"
Read the rest of this article >

If you read down to the bottom you’ll find this surprising bit of info:
"As we revealed here, the final 72 logo is not solely Otl Aicher’s design. Aicher had wanted to use a radiating sun (which was later put to good use by the German lottery) but it was deemed impossible to copyright. His design was put out to competition, the winning entry, as judged by a panel including Aicher, being Coordt von Mannstein’s (literal) twist on the original."

And on a side note the type is set in Univers, so nice.
Image via FFFFOUND!