Philately Fridays: Netherlands, 1967

5 cool stamps from The Netherlands. Loving the minimal illustration style, warm color scheme, and animal-themed imagery reminiscent of children's books.

Snakes!

Here's an array of snake-based logos for various companies.


Laboratorios Ausonia S.A., a Barcelona-based Pharmaceutical laboratory
designed by José Baqués, 1967


Alafoss wool manufacturers


Delta sales company, designed by B.K.Wiese (Germany)


Municipio della Citta di Bellinzona logo
designed by Udo Elzi for the Bellinzona municipality in Italy, 1975


San Giorgio Impermeabili, a Genova, Italy-based rainwear company
designed by Giulio Confalonieri, 1958


Tutta Milano, Italian tourism organization

3 Bears and a Kangaroo

Four animal logos created by German designers.


Philipp Seitz


Tobias Schwab


Gerhard Marx


Hermann Virl

Philately Fridays: Germany, 1972

4-stamp set from Berlin Germany, inspiring the youngsters to look after animals. Not sure about dumping a whole bunch of kittens into a sack though.

At the zoo

Great little logo for the Asahiyama Zoo in Hokkaido Japan, designed by Susumu Endo around 1967. It's perfect for this time of year - Minneapolis just had a little blast of snow last night and I feel like a reindeer could show up at any moment.

McRay Magleby

Check out this series of posters promoting timely college course registration, designed by Brigham Young's in-house designer McRay Magleby.


Click for larger view

Lance Wyman at the zoo

Fantastic animal icons designed by the great Lance Wyman for the National Zoo in Washington D.C.


Click for larger view

Charley Harper for the National Park Service

Charley Harper was one of the most uniquely talented illustrators of the 20th century. From the 1950s up until his death in 2007, Harper created a seemingly endless amount of gorgeous posters and other illustrations depicting animals, plantlife, and other natural forms. Whereas many artists would put microscopic detail into their renderings of leaf veins and housefly eyeballs, Harper was more interested in the general geometric shapes of animals and plants, breaking them down to their most simple forms. He said he didn't count feathers, he counted wings.

In the 1980s and early 1990s, Charley Harper completed ten posters for the US National Park Service, each focusing in on a specific ecosystem and its inhabitants. Prints of some of these are available online. Ask your buddy Google for help.







If you're serious about wanting to see more of Harper's beautiful artwork, Todd Oldham compiled a fantastic and gigantic book (over 400 pages!!!) which was released last year. It is available through YouWorkForThem

Animal logos

A few weeks ago, Adam Garcia shared some of his favorite typographic logos from the Signs + Emblems book. I've been flipping through my copy of this truly remarkable book and found a great selection of animal-based logos worth sharing.


Larralde & Llosa (Argentinian design studio)


Jésus Emilio Franco (Venezuelan design studio)


Jésus Emilio Franco (Venezuelan design studio)


L to R:
Showa Denko by Yusaku Kamemura (Japan)
Krefina Bank by Robert Geisser (Switzerland)
Confectioners by Charles Dean (USA)


Ramsey County (St. Paul, MN) Humane Society, designed by Richard Stanley