Russian Poster Collection
The Art of Hatch Show Print
The Little Friends of Printmaking
Current Work : Poster Design
The Psychedelic Experience
 I am really surprised at how difficult it is to find well-photographed collections of 60s psychedelic posters. I’ve been looking for several years for a nice online collection, and these two links are the best I’ve found. If you are aware of a better quality collection, please share the address: Paul Olsen CollectionWolfgang’s Vault collectionI would love to see this show...The Denver Art Museum is currently exhibiting The Psychedelic Experience, which consists of 300 rock posters from the San Francisco Bay Area, 1965 – 71. Maybe someone from Denver can give us a recap of the poster collection. The Psychedelic ExperienceIf you’re looking for some poorly thought out instructions on how to “easily master” psychedelic lettering, then you will probably enjoy this: Psychedelic letteringLabels: Denver Art Museum, graphic design, illustration, museums, poster, The Psychedelic Experience
Comprehensive Graphic Design Archive
 Eighty year-old graphic designer and design educator Maryellen McFadden has assembled an enormous and genuinely impressive collection of contemporary and historical graphic design work. She has categorized the work in an easy-to-find manner by designer, country of origin and historical style. This is as close to an online design encyclopedia as I’ve ever encountered. If you are a graphic designer, design student or design educator, this is a bookmark you will want to have. McFadden Design ArchiveLabels: graphic design, history of graphic design, Maryellen McFadden, poster, resource
Poster Illustration
After spending much of the week revamping this site, there was very little time for art and design making. So in lieu of spending yesterday putting together a Featured Art update, I spent most of the day creating this 18 x 24" illustrated poster. I based the illustration off of the photograph below — a completely random house that is located in Ypsilanti, MI. The entire poster was created using Adobe Illustrator.   Labels: illustration, poster, studiotwentysix2, Tom Davie
Sit On The Couch And Eat Ice Cream Day
 I find it strange that the one day a year that’s dedicated to work, everybody has the day off. Shouldn’t Labor Day be the day that everyone goes to work and shows a little pride, or at the very least, pretends to actually care about their job? If the government wants to give us an extra day off from work, why not call it: Lazy Day, or Hang Out With Your Family Day, or Sit On The Couch And Eat Ice Cream Day…mmmm, chocolate chip cookie dough. Anyway, here’s a nice WPA poster that shows the wonderful options a vocation in math can offer. Labels: poster, WPA poster
The Dark Knight
 I really like the newest poster for the upcoming The Dark Knight movie. The marketing and PR teams at Warner Brothers probably had a say in the final layout, but I think the poster would have been just as successful without The Dark Knight title at the bottom. The font usage is consistent throughout all of The Dark Knight promotional materials, but in this case, it just doesn’t seem to integrate as well as in some of the other posters. I will give it up for the designer / illustrator though, because I dig the Batman symbol that is created using handwritten text behind The Dark Knight title — excellent touch. Labels: graphic design, movie, poster, The Dark Knight
Helvetica NOW posters
 Linotype is celebrating its 50th anniversary of the Helvetica typeface. In recognition of the event, designers from around the world have created posters honoring the classic font. I certainly don’t love all of the posters, but there are a handful of well thought-out designs, with interesting concepts and layouts. You can vote for your favorites, now through December 7, 2007. Linotype Helvetica postersLabels: graphic design, Helvetica, poster
From A Lost Age...HORROR
   I happened to stumble across this site that does digital reproductions of old horror, SCI-FI and adventure posters, and thought it was a pretty nice historical resource. Also, if you dig old posters but don’t have the cash to buy an original, this seems like a “not as cool, but still better than having a bare wall” alternative. Oh, and not that I’m advocating image downloading, but if you were interested in buying a print and wanted to see a larger image, it is possible that if you save them to your machine and then open the image file, it may, in fact be larger — or so I’ve heard. Morbid MonsterLabels: graphic design, poster, resource
K ERNI N G 1 0 1
Late last night, I was searching through hundreds of old movie posters looking for some typographic ingenuity. After a solid hour of flirting with the Horror and Drama genres, I decided to slide on over to Action. Ah, glorious Action, with your minimal plot lines and over-the-top effects, how I adore you. Within minutes of searching through the Action posters, my focus became clear, find the most bitchin’ Dolph Lundgren poster ever conceived. Why this task, you ask? I can only respond...Why is the grass green? Why do people insist on putting Rosie O’Donnell in front of a television camera? Why does it consistently and unexpectedly thunder and lightning when I’m outside grilling near an exposed flame and open propane tank? During my quest to identify and crown the king of the Lundgren’s, a terrible thing occurred — I came face-to-face with the Direct Action poster.  Did the photoshopped bruise on Dolph’s left cheek disgust me? No. Was I intimidated by his cross-eyed stare and stone-cold vigilante face? Hardly. Did his Ironman digital watch or shirtsleeve-as-tourniquet trick distract me? Please. Was I irritated by the six-word tagline broken into four separate lines, resulting in a widow* infested pseudo-column? Most certainly. What remaining element struck fear in my heart and offended every design sensibility in my being? The Direct Action logotype — which, my friends, is without a doubt, nothing short of typographic heresy. Perhaps my reaction is a bit excessive, and those with an untrained eye will say, “So what, it’s just some frikkin’ type?” It’s true, it’s just some type, but it’s also some bastardized, not-even-attempted-to-be-kerned type. This I can’t ignore. This ladies and gentlemen, drives me absolutely nuts. Before I even get to the kerning, here is a comparison of the two C’s used in the logotype. I mean seriously, what the hell?  I simply cannot think of one acceptable reason as to why these letterforms are not the same size and shape. What’s even more confusing is that the designer had to go out of his or her way to manipulate the letterforms to achieve this. I can hear the internal dialogue now, “You know, this typeface looks too good as it is, I think it needs to suck more, maybe if I pull and stretch it a little, awww yeah, that’s hot”. It’s a good thing that Eric Gill is deceased, because if he were alive to see his Gill Sans abused like a baby’s diaper, he would probably be rocking in the fetal position, muttering phrases like: Can one man, Lundgren, beveled-edges and Action...ACTION. Okay, enough with Gill. I need to focus my attention on the aforementioned kerning issue by offering typographic know-how for the greater good. If you are unfamiliar with the word “kern”, it’s a term used in typography that means adjusting the space between letterforms so they appear to be equal distance from one another. For the sake of example, I have recreated the Direct Action logotype without all the fancy beveled-edges and gritty lava-colored effects (Yes, I am fully aware that I’m a dork). Black and white is the manner in which type should be evaluated, because evil is easily recognized in its purest form. On the left side of the C’s, is a huge gap, large enough to require a Tarzan-like vine to cross it, or spelunking gear to explore it — in other words, it’s wrong. On the right side of the C’s, you will notice the T’s have demanded restraining orders, due to the violation of personal space — different offense, but equally wrong.  Using ten transparent dots, I have flagged the main areas that require adjusting. A quality designer will take the time to reposition each letter, to ensure even visual spacing and letterform harmony. A typographic Pet Sounds, if you will.  The illustration below shows the shifting of the letters. As a reference point, I have aligned the A’s in “Action” from the original and my version. The areas in purple are the original type, the areas in orange with black outline, are my corrections (and the solid pink shows areas of overlap).  Here is the revised logotype that even Dolph Lundgren would appreciate:  Whew! Future catastrophes avoided. Since that’s taken care of, I can now return to the task at hand, showing you the baddest-of-the-bad, the mayor of Lundgrenville — The 1987, Masters of the Universe, French edition movie poster.  I mean honestly, what’s not to love about this poster? Any 24 x 36 inch space that can integrate oodles of hetero and homosexual undertones with the French language, a mullet, a male Speedo / leotard and a gun-toting pixie-sized Courtney Cox, is unquestionably top-notch. Even the style is fantastic. If Star Wars, Mad Max, Fabio and every Journey album cover since 1978, engaged in a night of drinking and debauchery, I’m guessing the illegitimate offspring might look a little something like this. There you have it, Masters of the Universe, Lundgren style. I’m sorry to say that it’s time we Faithfully go our Separate Ways. *Widow - undesirable typographic term that refers to a single word (typically eight letters or less) that has been left on its own line of type, causing too much white space or an interruption to the reader’s eye. Labels: graphic design, humor, poster
WPA Poster Archive
While doing some historical poster research, I happened upon this jem of an archive – over 900 Works Projects Administration posters photographed by the US Library of Congress. The WPA posters were created following the Great Depression (1935-43), as a way of providing work for artists and illustrators. Some of the posters are really well-designed, some are not, but each has its own charm. Many of the posters have huge 4MB versions available for download (although some of the photos are of questionable quality).  WPA Poster ArchiveLabels: graphic design, illustration, poster, WPA poster
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