San Francisco, California

Brent Couchman is a contemporary illustrator/designer with a stylish mid-century modern flare—see more of his work here and here.

Thanks to Carole Guevin for the cue.

—William Shakespeare

New York, USA

Henry Wolf was an Austrian-born American graphic designer, photographer and art director best known for his art direction of Esquire, Harper’s Bazaar, and Show magazines in the 1950s and ’60s—an influential contributor to that Mid-Century Modern era whose style has enjoyed such a resurgence in popularity of late. In particular, he is known for his bold yet simple use of expressive typography, surreal photography, and conceptual illustration.

Henry was born in 1925 in Vienna, Austria, from which he and his Jewish family fled the Nazis beginning in 1938, traveling through France and North Africa, before arriving to the United States in 1941. He worked with photographers Richard Avedon, Melvin Sokolsky, and Art Kane before launching his own photography studio in New York’s Upper East Side.

He became art director of Esquire in 1952; in 1958 he became the art director of Harper’s Bazaar (succeeding Alexey Brodovitch); and in 1961 he started a new magazine, Show, for A&P heir Huntington Hartford. In 1965 he moved over to the advertising world where he directed numerous high-profile campaigns. In 1971 he launched Henry Wolf Productions, a studio devoted to photography, film, and design. In later years he taught graphic design at Parsons School of Design in New York, as well as the School of Visual Arts, and Cooper Union.

Henry was honored with many awards, but more importantly, he was admired by colleagues, peers, and competitors alike. Read a biography written my Milton Glaser here and view collections of his works here.

(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.

(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.

Winnipeg, Canada

Designer colleagues from across the country were commenting today (on the GDC Listserv) about the wonderful old signage that adorns many of the buildings here in the Exchange District (where CIRCLE is situated). I’ve now spent nearly 36 years surrounded by these fading facades… and I have to admit, they really do grow on a person.

Shown above are a few samples from a Flickr collection by Bryan Scott.  All images © Bryan Scott.

Düsseldorf, Germany

“Beginning in 1928, Gerd Arntz, commissioned by Otto Neurath, developed the Isotype visual dictionary, consisting of over 4000 symbols. The idea was that images can bridge differences of language, are easy to grasp and, when done well, are also nice to look at. The legibility of Isotype is determined by the simplicity of its symbols. These should be instantly recognizable, without any distracting detail…”

Read more about this amazing undertaking and see hundreds more of Gerd’s wonderful illustrated symbols here.

London, U.K.

Ronald Searle, the British cartoonist and caricaturist whose outlandishly witty illustrations for books, magazine covers, newspaper editorial pages and advertisements helped define postwar graphic humor, died on Friday (3 January) in Draguignan, in southeastern France, where he lived. He was 91.

Lampooning the foibles of the English class system as well as clerics, politicians and even other artists, Mr. Searle was often described as a latter-day version of the 18th-century British graphic satirist William Hogarth. His cartoons combined an ear for linguistic nuance with a caustic pen and brush. With just a few well-placed lines, he pierced the facades of his targets without resorting to ridicule or rancor…

Read the rest of a tribute by Steven Heller in a New York Times obituary here. View a wonderful, recent interview with Ronald Searle here.

(from the slopes of the vintage Alps)

“High-end UK dealer Vintage Seekers is offering an expertly curated selection of mid-century posters featuring ski resorts throughout the Alps and other destinations. These are all uncommon original prints and the price tags reflect that fact… those of us without the budget for these classic works of advertising art will have to admire them via our computer screens.”

Thanks to my colleague Carisa Romans for the source/link, here (where you can find more links and larger views).

Berlin, Germany

An impressive joint venture of the Buchstabenmuseum (Museum of Letters) and a dozen dedicated students from the University of Applied Sciences in Coburg has transformed a former beauty salon into an impressive museum experience in the heart of Berlin. An elevated walkway in the museum serves as a central element and leads the visitors throughout the exhibition spaces where “the letterforms are featured as heroes.”

What began as a school assignment developed into a thesis exhibition and leaves a lasting legacy for the benefit of anyone interested in typography and signage. Beyond ideation and design, students also gained valuable hands-on experience by spending a week at the Lichtenfels Innovationszentrum (a makerspace) building and assembling fittings and display components.

Read a full account of this great student-led project here.

The Buchstabenmuseum was founded as a nonprofit organization in 2005. Its founding was inspired by an enthusiasm for typography and a passion for preserving typographical signs and characters. The museum aims to collect, restore and exhibit letters and characters from Berlin and around the world. Hundreds of letters have been saved from neglect or destruction and placed on display in the museum. Through the systematic preservation and documentation of these historical objects, the Buchstabenmuseum has become both a reminder of past eras and a laboratory for ongoing discussions. It is currently the only museum that focuses exclusively on individual letters as symbols.

Buchstabenmuseum — Karl-Liebknecht-Str. 13, 10178 Berlin-Mitte