Philately Fridays: Israel 1964

This is kind of appropriate for Thanksgiving and the holiday season I think. Make sure to look out for the folks around you.

Ballantine Adult Fantasy

A little while ago, my dude Adam Garcia put me up on these fresh to death fantasy book covers from Ballantine. I'm a sucker for '70s watercolor paintings, so these are right up my alley.













See all of them HERE.

Have a happy Thanksgiving and I'll be back on Friday!
Mike

Knudsen's Frozen Yogurt

Back in the late 1970s, my Uncle opened a frozen yogurt joint in New Orleans. Back at the time, it was truly a pioneering kind of move as most of the world, especially the Crescent City, had yet to be swept off their feet by this new dessert phenomenon. With the help of his brother (my father), he opened up Humphrey Yogart. Yes... that's what it was really called. I'll have to get a photo of the t-shirt on here some time soon.

So anyways, throughout the process of running a successful frozen yogurt establishment, my uncle and father acquired a great deal of frozen yogurt-related literature and promotional printed matter. While going through my grandparents' house in New Orleans a couple of years ago, I found a brochure from Knudsen's Frozen Yogurt with this overly-dramatized illustration of a frozen yogurt orgy.


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LOGO WARS II

After Lubalin's legendary L'eggs logo stomped out Judge's in round 1 of Logo Wars, we're back for another matchup!

In this corner, we have some sort of elk designed for Harvey Dodds, a ski company from Montreal.



And in the other corner, we have what appears to be a reindeer. Whereabouts unknown!

Philately Fridays: USA Olympics, 1983

Well, my pacing for this week worked out pretty nicely, If you've been paying attention, we've been moving through the art of the Olympics, one event every day in chronological order. This means we're up to 1984 today and it just so happens that I've got a great stash of Olympic stamps to share today. I really love this series of watercolor illustrations the US postal service released in 1983, in anticipation of the '84 games. They went above and beyond the call of duty with a HUGE set of different stamps, postcards, and envelopes. What I'm showing here is just a taste of the entire series. Does anyone know who the artist is here?

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Olympics pictograms: Moscow 1980

The symbols for the 1980 Olympic games, held in Moscow, were designed by Nikolai Belkow, fresh out of art school. His designs are more rounded out and smoothed than Aicher's, but are still very stripped down and stylized.

Check out this production sketch that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the skeleton of each illustration. Notice that the angles he's using (30 and 60º) are much less harsh and deliberate than the 45º angles used by Otl Aicher.



I'm also really into the logo for the '80 games, a nice answer to the '76 logo featuring the Kremlin clock tower:

Olympics pictograms: Montreal 1976

So... you wanna see the symbols for the 1976 Olympic games? Well... there weren't any... at least, there weren't any new symbols designed. Instead, Otl Aicher's designs from the 1972 were reused. I guess that's more argument for the long-lasting staying power of his work!

However, Montreal's own Georges Huel did create this fantastic logo for the '76 games.



This is what a logo should be - it says so much with no excess at all. With just a few circles and "sausages shapes" (shout-out to Wezzburlesque for the phrase), you've got the eternally iconic Olympic rings, the three podiums for the gold, silver, and bronze medal winners, and an M for Montreal.

Olympics pictograms: Munich 1972

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German graphic designer Otl Aicher brought the Olympic symbol design game to a whole new level with his designs for the 1972 games, held in Munich. His event icons have become, well... iconic, used and abused by designers and artists to this day. There's something so concise and finite about the way he captured each sport and represented it with a series of dots and horizontal, vertical, and diagonal lines.

Aside from the pictograms, Aicher also created an entire universe of astonishingly gorgeous posters, brochures, and other printed matter for the games.







Oh and how about some Olympic event matchbooks?!?!?



Credits must go to the original collectors of these great items. Please check out the Otl Aicher image pool on Flickr for more images and info!

Olympics pictograms: Mexico 1968

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The fantastic pictograms, logo, and identity for the 1968 Olympic games, held in Mexico City, were designed by the great Lance Wyman. Throughout the entire identity system for the games, Wyman did a fantastic job of combining the bright colors of Mexican art and culture, ultra-contemporary '60s op-art style, and these sports logos which are simple and stylish enough to still stand out today. Check out these other great applications for his designs:

Philately Fridays: Israel 1977

Come on ride the train.


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Good Day Brazil

Beautiful motion graphics piece for Brazilian television, 1983. The final frame is by far the best - a great illustration of Brazil made up of those rainbow stripes seen moving all around throughout the piece. I'd rock a t-shirt of that.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

This is such a hot LP cover. Such a perfect combination of illustration and typography. Two Gentlemen of Verona is a musical written by Galt MacDermot (of "Hair" fame (I'm also a huge fan of MacDermot, "Hair," and all the weird versions of the soundtrack out there (I'll probably be showing a bunch of them on the blog in due time))). Art direction by Peter Whorf, design by Martin Donald.


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Nelo Möbel

Nelo is a Swedish furniture company with a gorgeous logo.

OPP: Jeremy Pettis

Today's entry comes from Milwaukee-based graphic designer and Pileup-reader Jeremy Pettis. Jeremy passed along these great magazine covers from Poland Magazine. I've never heard of Poland, but if we can safely judge the magazine by its cover, then they're probably really good reads. Anyone know anything about it?

Philately Fridays: France, 1979

France gettin' it in with a super retro-futuristic design for the 3rd world expo of telecommunications, held in Geneva Switzerland.

Television Française, 1975 & 1976

Mr. Scien from the mighty 123 Klan hipped me to these great station ID animations from France's TF1 circa 1975 and '76 respectively. Check out the incredibly clever typography with the interlocking T, F, and 1 in the first clip and the funked out soundtrack and more futuristic vision from the '76 clip.





Thanks Scien! Check for the special French postage stamp on Friday in your honor!

USA! USA! USA! USA!

Beautiful work yesterday America. Thank you.

Election Night '72

I hope all of the American readers here have either voted or plan to go vote today.

Here's something topical... news footage from election night on 1972 Washington DC's CBS affiliate station WTOP. Never mind Nixon's victory, check out the super stylized typography and killer set designs.



This one is pretty scuzzy, but still worth watching:

Expo '70 book

My good friend Chikara sent me this guidebook from the 1970 World's Fair and Expo, held in his hometown of Osaka Japan. The book is filled to the brim with watercolor illustrations of the different expo pavilions, logos and maps. I'm a huge fan of amusement park maps, so this was a real treat. Thanks Chikara!


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