October 2008

Brian Roettinger is the L.A. based designer and typographic song-and-dance man behind Hand Held Heart. He created the above work while traveling with Liars and No Age, making individual 7″ covers for each city on the tour.

A lot of Brian’s work has this same focus and attention to detail. Every little piece is thought-out and considered. The work feels experimental and unique, and at the same time deliberate, intentional, and confident.

Check out his Theremin Sans, a typeface made while playing the theramin.

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Palestine Poster designed by Faustino Perez in 1968

Hop on over to So Much Pileup. There showing OSPAAAL posters all week.

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Thanks to Tony Nguyen for sending in these bus passes from the 1940s. Bus #11 seems to be running low on self esteem. “Everyone cannot ride in the first car or bus”, so I guess your stuck with #11. Oh well..

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Found this 1968 yearbook for Depauw University a month ago. I have no idea how the island looking thingys tie in with the school, but I’m really digging it. I think I’m going to chop the front cover off and frame it. Anyone else have any ideas? Maybe I could use the top to make a series of designer trap doors.  Mirage might be a fitting title for that. Trap doors will be the hot thing in 2009, just wait and see. I’m also looking to heavily invest in secret underground passageways and fish sticks. If you have a cave and box of Gorton’s….let’s talk.

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We have a winner in the Grain Edit Insound 20 Thermals Poster Giveaway we announced last tuesday. Congrats to Owen Evans. He will be receiving 1 limited edition Thermals poster designed by Jason Munn of The Small Stakes.

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Posters for Centre de Creation Industrielle 1969-1972

Beautiful work form the highly underrated French designer Jean Widmer. These posters were created for the Centre de Creation Industrielle. Jean designed the logo as well as all the exhibition posters for the Centre until 1975. He’s mentioned in interviews that his work was influenced by some of the Swiss modernists including Josef Muller Brockmann and Max Bill.  You can easily see that influence in this poster series.

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Anna Sui has teamed up with the Estate of Alexander Girard to present a series of T-shirts for Spring 2009. One of the T-shirts features an image very similar to this Girard Nativity Poster we featured here last year.  You can see all the T-shirts here.

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I absolutely love this book cover by Erwin Bauer. Great mix of type and architectural elements. The inside design has some really yummy type details. I love finding work like this, it feels so effortless.

Erwin Bauer is a man, and a design studio based in Vienna, Austria. They work on a wide range of projects, from architecture, traditional graphic design, and type design.

I like their “Rejected” section, which I assume compiles their unused designs. It would be fun to see this from more firms.

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Actual downloaded print proudly displaying itself in its native Berkeley habitat

Tomorrow partners put together these posters for the upcoming election. The posters are each limited editions, printed in three colors, 18″ x 24″ and are priced at $20. Also available are 8 1/2″ x 11″ and 11″x 17″ versions that can be downloaded for free. Print up a bunch to post around town!

Both posters can be purchased or downloaded for free here.

Get ready to vote!

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Last week we had the chance to hang out with the crew from San Francisco design studio MINE. Under the direction of Christopher Simmons, MINE is a small and versatile design shop. We got the low-down, talked graphic design, told some jokes, and saw lots of cool work.

The office is a little nook in Bernal Heights. Very intimate, and accommodates the three designers nicely. You know you’re there when you see the funky doorbell, the Eames furniture, a bright orange bean bag chair, and the distinguishing sign on the door that reads “this is our office.”

I’m always impressed with the quantity and diversity in the projects they’re working on. They’re driven by concepts, not by a certain style. The work doesn’t look like it was “designed by MINE.” Instead, it makes sense, has personality, and definitely communicates a point of view.

Thanks again to MINE for opening up the studio, and letting us snap these photos.

Enjoy the tour!

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Voting for the People’s Design Award ends today at 6:00 P.M. Eastern. Our friends at Mine are nominated for Everything is OK, their experimental call to action.

You still have time to vote!

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We’ve teamed up with Insound to offer this special giveaway today.  Up for grabs is 1 Limited Edition Thermals poster. The poster is part of the Insound 20 series designed by Jason Munn of The Small Stakes.

All you have to do is enter the giveaway here and we’ll announce the winner next Tuesday, 10/28 on grain edit.

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Info on the Insound 20 series:

The series consists of 20 designs for 20 bands. Each design was screened on limited edition T-Shirts, Hoodies and Hand-Numbered Posters. The limited posters were screened once in a run of 200 and after these are gone they won’t be reprinted.

If you want to be alerted of future giveaways, please sign up for the Grain Edit RSS Feed.

If you haven’t already, Check out our interview with Jason Munn of the Small Stakes.

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Once again, you can enter the giveaway here.

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We’re rolling with the Pirate theme. First Office’s design for 826 Valencia’s new store and now Booty Juggler, a fun new game designed/animated by Robin Davey and built by Ben Templeton of Thought Den. The look of the game was inspired by vintage poster and animation design, the nautical tattoos of Sailor Jerry, and scruffy screenprinted goodness.

Give it a toss here.

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Argh! The swashbuckling design crew Office worked on the above branding for 826 Valencia’s new pirate supply store. They designed the store’s identity, posters and nearly 50 new products, like Decent Peg Leg Oil, Scurvy BeGone pills and Captain Blackbeard’s Beard Extensions. If you’d benefit from any of these products, or to help out 826 Valencia, cruise by the shop.

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Marilyn Neuhart dolls for the Textile & Objects shop circa 1961 – photo credit Todd Webb of maXimo

The Scout has an excellent interview with Marilyn Neuhart. Marilyn along with her husband John worked as designers in the Eames Office during the late 1950s. She also worked with Alexander Girard in developing the graphics as well as a line of dolls for Girard’s Textile & Objects Shop in New York City. In part of the interview, Marilyn mentions that she would drive around Los Angeles with Girard looking for toys and folk art. That must of been a blast.

Well enough of me rambling. Read the whole interview here. Check out the rest of the Scout while your there. It’s a great site.

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Hello to London based designer Nick Dart. Mr. Dart has a nice collection of CD packaging, poster and print work over on his site. Besides this design for the number two, I was really impressed by his great typeface and logo designs. Definitely one of the top numeral designers out there, for sure.

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LAX map designed by Dotan & Associates in 1982

Just found this LAX map. The pictograms on the front are very similar to the identity work of Otl Aicher for the 1972 Munich Olympics.

Whats with the obnoxious use of question marks? That’s really ruining my mello.

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Nate Burgos is the man behind Design Feast. An excellent resource and growing index of design related sites. Nate recently invited me to take part in the Designer’s Questionnaire section of the site. For my Questionnaire, Nate asked me 7 questions related to blogging. You can see all my answers here.

While your there, checkout Nate’s book entitled Thought Leadership by Design. A timeless volume of contemporary quotes on the powerful, evolving nature of Design and its influence on society, business, technology, education, and most importantly: Everyday life. The book includes quotes from Ladislav Sutnar, Paul Rand, Milton Glaser and many more.

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My wife and I just started watching Mad Men and I  think we’re hooked. Every Sunday night we run upstairs to catch all the dirt going down with the Drapers and the rest of the lot. Not to mention, drool over all the cool furniture! That house in Palm Springs in tonight’s episode had some amazing mid century modern pieces including George Nelson cigar bubble lamps and an Eero Saarinen womb chair. Besides the furniture, I love looking at the type they use on the sets. Mark Simonson has a great post on his blog regarding the type choices for the show.

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Thank you everyone for taking part in our giveaway! We had over 1,400 people enter. It was great to see all your comments and look forward to another year.

We randomly selected our 4 winners in the Grain Edit 1 Year Anniversary Giveaway Shindig thing this morning. The winners will be listed at the bottom of the Grain Edit Email Update and Grain Edit RSS Feed. For those of you who subscribe to the email updates, the email will arrive sometime between now and tomorrow morning.

Many Thanks to all the wonderful designers and stores that sponsored today’s giveaway. Without them this wouldn’t of been possible. Please visit their websites and support their work.

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Adrian Johnson

Antonio Carusone/AisleOne

BEAUTIFUL/DECAY

Burlesque of North America

Draplin Design Co.

Field Notes Brand

Frank Chimero

House Industries

Scott Hansen/Iso50

Invisible Creature

Jason Munn/The Small Stakes

Julia Rothman

Justin Fines

Lab Partners

Lorena Siminovich/ Petit Collage

Matte Stephens

The Heads of State

Wayne Pate/GoodShapeDesign

Xavier Encinas of Swiss Legacy/ Peter&Wendy

You Work For Them

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Stay tuned for our next giveaway, coming soon!

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Eliezer Weishoff posters (L)1964 (R)1966

Beautiful posters from Israeli artist and sculptor Eliezer Weishoff. Eliezer first gained international exposure through his work for El Al Airlines and the Israeli Ministry of Tourism during the early 1970s. He was also responsible for designing these environmental stamps we posted back in April. He has a website, but unfortunately I couldn’t find any examples of his early poster work in his image galleries.

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Thomas and the Twig giving me the stare down.

Sorry everyone, I’m running a little late today on my posts. If you missed this, I posted this gem of a kids book by Mary Harris ( illustrations by Cliff Roberts) over at Design Sponge.

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YouWorkForThem just launched a brand new site this week. If you are unfamiliar with YWFT, it’s an online store that carries books, t-shirts, posters, stock images and more.

We love books at Grain Edit so, we took some time to browse through the book section and select some of our top picks.

We’ve included links below each description, so you can get more info/purchase the book if you want to.

Dave’s picks

Charley Harper –  An Illustrated Life

This mammoth 420 page book put together by Top Designer Todd Oldham is a wonderful tribute to Charley Harper. The book is filled with full color examples of Charley’s stunning work.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

Steven Harrington: Our Mountain

I love Steven Harrington’s illustration style and this book serves as a wonderful overview of his work. This copy is signed and drawn on by Steven Harrington himself!

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

Pino Tovaglia: The Rule That Corrects Emotion

We received a copy of this book from the publisher a few months back and loved it. You can see our review of the book here. YWFT got in some copies and now you can own a copy of this hard to find Italian import too.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

Grid Systems in Graphic Design

Josef Muller Brockmann’s magnum dopest. The definitive book on grid systems. Every designer should be required to own this.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

Wim Crouwel Alphabets

I really want a copy of the Wim Crouwel monograph: Mode En Module, but this book will have to due for now. Mode en Module has been out of print for a while and now goes for crazy cash. Wim Crouwel Alphabets (as seen above) is now of out of print as well and I’m sure it won’t be long before it increases in value. YWFT them still has a few copies, get your hands on one while you still can.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

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Ethan’s Picks

How To Be a Graphic Designer Without Losing Your Soul

As a design student, I am constantly looking for that juicy “tell-all” graphic design book. The one where you learn everything about being a real designer before actually getting a job. I love hearing different tips and tricks from seasoned designers. But my quest is over, because that book is here.

Adrian Shaughnessy breaks the process down into the necessary steps: how to find a job, being freelance, setting up a studio, running a studio, the creative process, etc. All of my burning questions answered in one book! Adrian also includes interviews with Neville Brody, Rudy VanderLans, Andy Cruz, and Natalie Hunter, among others, plus a forward by Stefan Sagmeister.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

Beautiful Losers

One summer I spent a month attempting to learn how to skateboard. In the three years since then I’ve probably only landed two tricks successfully. I either got hurt or was too intimidated. Beautiful Losers is a way for me to vicariously live out my 1990s street and skate culture fascinations, without having to get on a skateboard.

Beautiful Losers tells the story of how artists and designers like Shepard Fairey, Spike Jonze, Mike Mills, Barry McGee, and others built their own art community independent of the mainstream art institution.

Click here for more for more info/ purchase a copy.

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If you haven’t signed up for the Grain Edit 1 Year Anniversary Giveaway yet, it’s not too late. There’s tons of prizes! You can find out more info and sign up here. It’s quick, easy and free. We will be selecting the winners on Friday.

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Dave handling the calls at the Gain Edit customer care corner

Ethan spending quality time listening to the new Grain Edit Audio Tour (clipboard optional)

We’re darn pleased to announce that Apartment Therapy is featuring Grain Edit as the latest entry in their Behind the Blog series.

You can see the whole thing here

Grain Edit we’re here for you.

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This just in…Grace of  Design Sponge asked me to guest blog for the rest of the week so, I’ll be posting goodies over there as well. This is a real honor for me, since she runs such a great site. For today’s post I dug up a German Advent calendar.

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‘Form’ Unit Furniture by British designer Robin Day for Hille 1961

I thought I’d switch it up a little bit today and post my dream sofa for the workplace. I love the color combinations and the black finished steel base frame. The unit has wide generous seats, yet doesn’t look bulky or heavy. The table top can be surfaced with a mahogany veneer. A drink cabinet can added instead of the corner table.

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I hope everyone had a great weekend. Liz and I went to this new Singaporean restaurant in Lafayette. The food was great. I had the Nasi Lemak and it was on point. The rice had so much flavor. We wanted to get the Chicken Rice, but they ran out. Say what? Singaporean food without Chicken Rice? Oh well, I was kind of bummed about that, but we’ll be back.

Thanks for all the wonderful comments on the Grain Edit 1 Year Anniversary Giveaway! It’s really inspiring to see all the positive feedback. You guys are the best!

If you haven’t signed up for the giveaway, it’s not too late. You can sign up here.

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This is every cat’s nightmare.

Very similar in style to this 70s Japanese poster. Has to be the same designer.

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In the midst of Grain Edit’s one year anniversary, we’re super excited to bring you this interview with Adrian Johnson. Mr. Johnson is a UK-based designer/illustrator whose work spans editorial, print, motion, and his own self-initiated projects. He has designed for Mastercard, Giant Robot, Vodafone, and Stussy, to name a few. In the interview, Adrian talks about his background, inspirations, creative process, and of course, zeitgeist.

A lot of work nowadays is stylish, and fun, and cool, but can ultimately become irrelevant due to poorly executed ideas, or lack of decent concepts. I see Adrian’s work as a nice balance between kick-butt graphics and style, and smart ideas that get through to people.

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