Happy New Year!

'72, '09, same thing. See you guys next year!

'Tis the season

It's so easy to get caught up with shopping and traffic and crappy winter weather that sometimes we forget that the holiday season is all about giving (cue the music). Here are two well-known logos from two well-known non-profit organizations. I see them so often that I forget how nicely-designed they are.


Boys & Girls Club
designed by ???


United Way
designed by Saul Bass, 1972

Philately Fridays: Canada 1971

Special dedication to all my Canadian peoples celebrating Boxing Day today.

Christmas Bonus

If you're spending Christmas day on the internet, you may as well have some new stuff to look at! Enjoy!

Merry Christmas

Happy Holidays, Peace on Earth, Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

OPP: Double Triple

Phillip from Double Triple sent in a photo of this great book cover he found at the Brooklyn Public Library. Instantly reminds me of one of my favorite contemporary illustrators, Parra.



Parra for comparison:



Thanks Phillip! Check out his very cool collage and motion design work at doubletriple.net.

OPP: Delicious Design League

Billy from Delicious comes through with another fly selection from his collection.

He says, "I bought this calendar around 1999 in an antique mall in South St. Louis County. The wonderfully psychedelic watercolor illustrations are by Frederic Martin (If any readers are familiar with his other work, please comment with information!).

You can see that it not only has an illustration for each astrological sign, but it also marks the birthdays of actors and singers of the day.

It's pretty beat to Hell and some months have things written on the dates and other such notes but it doesn't detract from the great illustrations."

Thanks Billy! Check out his work here.

Click images for larger view

Judging Books by their Covers

In Philly, my dude Adam took me to this great used book store. We were buggin' over all of these dope book covers. The winner is clearly BACKGAMMON. Bright orange cloth with gold foil debossed Baby Teeth title and nothing else? Yes please.

Philately Fridays: Germany, 1975

Illy German stamp about drug abuse... can't tell if it's for or against it though.

T.S.O.P.

Tomorrow I'm off to the City of Brotherly Love, so I figured it was as good a time as any to put up one of my favorite logos. The bell, the 76, it's too perfect.

Record label logos

On Friday night, my DJ set for the first time in a while was all vinyl. It took me a minute to get my bearings but it felt nice to be off the laptop for a night. I found myself paying closer attention to the label art and logos on some of the records, so that inspired me to flip through my record collection this morning and find a couple of sharp logos to put up on the old blog. Here they are.







BONUS! Here are Horizon Records' very own Yellow Magic Orchestra with their killer disco synth banger "Firecracker." I had no idea there was a video for this and am really diggin' it. Pretty much exactly what I would expect from these guys and this song. It's almost exactly what I picture in my head when I hear the song.

Philately Fridays: Psychedelic Brazil

Here are a few great psychedelic / op-art stamps from Brazil.

First up is one from 1977 in honor of Amateur Radio Day (Dia Do Radioamador):



And a set from Christmas 1971:

Israeli Lottery, 1977

Zodiac-inspired design for the Israeli lottery (Mifail Hapais).
Designed by Asher Kalderon in 1977. I love how this has the effortless flow of a late '60s psychedelic concert poster as well as the rigid but funky geometry of a Milton Glaser design. Wish I could see a full-color version of this.

LOGO WARS III

This time we're gonna let two Swiss-designed lions duke it out!


Honegger-Lavater (bank in Switzerland)


Zodiac symbol (Leo, designed by Robert Gessner)