Methinks there’s a global movement afoot… and I love it.

—Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

(source)

There’s a stark, graphic beauty to be found in vintage matchbox labels… resulting from the bold design approach needed to accommodate a combination of coarse and absorbent substrates, low-resolution printing techniques, and a limited color palette (often muted, and often printed out of register). Shown above are a few samples of Eastern European designs from the 1950s and 1960s.

View hundreds more here.

—Rumi

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Lots of other bits of wisdom can be found under Quotable(s).

(riding back in time)

There’s something about Vespa that takes me back… recognized as the epitome of Italian design, manufactured in the tens of millions, and distributed to almost every corner of the earth, this iconic, curvaceous little scooter from the 1940s has carved out a niche meme for itself that has survived six decades of the “information age” in style.

I first rode a Vespa (Italian for “wasp”) during driver training and then tested on it for my German motorcycle license in 1972. Nowadays, it’s relatively easy to find fine collections of vintage Vespa images online (calendars were popular for half a century), such as here.

—Ralph Waldo Emerson