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Dear Santa, Hanukkah Harry, and Kwanzaa Ken:

Searching high and low across the vast realm of the interwebs, we’ve collectively compiled probably one of the hugest lists imaginable with some of our favorite artists! We’ve all been on our best behavior, assisting elderly ladies and gents across the street and working our fannies off. Please take a moment to give this list a good read, and say you’ll bring some of these things our way!

Sincerely,
Grain Edit & Friends

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Olivetti Lettera 22 Manual

I’m blown away by this Olivetti Lettera Manual Ed Cornish posted over at the excellent we made this (blog). Absolutely stunning! You can see the full manual at Ed’s Flickr account.

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Olivetti / Charter Hall Nairobi 1966 Offset 84×59.5 cm

Stunning poster by Anna Monika Jost. I’m guessing all the circular shapes are either gumball’s or typewriter keys. I’m betting on the later (secretly wishing it’s the gumballs though). I wonder if all the letters and numbers spell out some sort of code. Wait a minute, Olivetti is in Italy. Maybe its a code prediciting the release date of the Davinci code part 15 starring Tom Hank’s son. Whoops, sorry I got sidetracked. Back to Jost. Anyone have any info on her? I couldn’t find much online.

Ok We’re back. I hope everyone had a great New Years! Lets start things off with our first ever…

Conservationist of the Month:

Grain Edit reader Brad Mosher rescued this endangered Italian specimen from a stinky dumpster in an alleyway. To quote Brad, “It was beautiful, broken and smelled of rancid oil and other typical foul goo.” Way to go Brad! Great score and thanks for helping to make this planet a better place.

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Italia Modern Design - Published by PIE Books c2007

Japanese publisher PIE Books has put together some excellent design related books over the past couple years including Book Design of Graphic Designers in the World, Olle Eksell and Book Design of Graphic Designers in Japan. I picked up Italia Modern Design recently and it doesn’t disappoint. The book focuses on Italian graphic design from the 1950s-1970s and includes many of the heavyweights like Bruno Munari, Giovanni Pintori, Max Huber, Enzo Mari, Pino Tovaglia, Albe Steiner etc. It also includes a fair amount of work from Olivetti and Pirelli.

The people at PIE Books do a great job of sourcing and presenting the materials. They always dig up a few posters/books/magazines that I’ve never seen before. I just wish they would include an English translation (all the text is in Japanese) so, I can follow along with the notes.

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Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of Grain Edit and we’ve got a big giveaway planned, so be sure to stop by! We’ve had a great year and want to thank all our awesome readers for their wonderful comments and for making Grain Edit a frequent destination.

I’d especially like to thank all of the designers and illustrators that took time out of their busy schedules to share with us.

Some of the highlights of the past year include:

Matte Stephens showed us his awesome home.  Don Clark of Invisible Creature schooled us on his “family portrait”.  Scott Thares of Wink broke out the KISS drawings. Bo Lundberg took us behind the scenes of Barefoot in the Park and Jason Munn of the Small Stakes showed us his Horse Chest.

Ben Butcher of Pixar gave us a sneak a peek into the making of the Wall-E picture book Lots of Bots. Sean and Nicole Flores shared their insane book collection.  Ian Follett showed us some amazing stamps.  Small studio, Odopod and Chronicle Books all graciously opened up their spaces for us and Mike Davis of Burlesque served us up a tight mix.

We created some new groups:

Grain Edit Facebook group

Paul Rand Flickr Group

Modern Sticker, Stamp and label club

Some of the most popular posts (besides the interviews and studio visits) of the past year include:

Swiss Designer Hans Hartmann

Publicity and graphic design in the chemical industry - Hans Neuburg 1967

Giant Golden Book of Biology - An Introduction to the Science of Life c1961

Henri’s Walk to Paris- c1962- illustrations and design Saul Bass

Alain Gree - l’electricitie c1969

Israeli Environment stamps designed by Eliezer Weishoff in 1975

53 Years of Jauna Gaita Magazine

Issues of Icographic magazine 1971-1978 produced by ICOGRADA

Concepts - Promotional book for US Steel c1961

Giovanni Pintori exhibition catalog c2003

Vette Annonce type specimen sheet late - Netherlands 1950s/ early 60s

Lastly we’d like send thank you’s to: Coudal, Design Related and Julia Rothman for allowing us to contribute to each of their sites. How magazine for naming us one of the top 10 Sites for Designers for the month of December. David Airey for including us in the Top 50 Graphic Design Blogs and for all the great sites that featured us in their posts.

We have some exciting things planned for the next few weeks and months, so stay tuned. Thanks again everyone!

If you haven’t already, consider subscribing to the Grain Edit RSS. and join us tomorrow for our 1 year anniversary giveaway!

Be sure to check the grain edit RSS Feed/ Email update today.  We have announced the winner in the Raymond Savignac Poster Giveaway!

Thanks to everyone who participated! We will be announcing a new giveaway soon.

Design Coordination and corporate image - FHK Henrion + Alan Parkin c1967

This is an excellent book on the subject of corporate identity. All the big design guns are in here. The best part, for each case study the designer explains the problems he encountered and his thoughts behind the design etc.

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Last December we gave away a Raymond Savignac poster. Since then we’ve received emails from people interested in the poster, so we decided to give one more away.

poster details: This is not an original, but rather a reissue of the original poster Savignac created for Olivetti in 1953. We received this copy directly from the Olivetti Society in Italy.

Sounds great, but how do I enter to win?

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Giovanni Pintori exhibition catalog c2003

Giovanni Pintori won a scholarship in 1930 (at the age of 18) to study at the ISIA in Monza under design heavyweights like Marcello Nizzoli and Edoardo Persico. After graduation he was invited to work for Olivetti in the Development & Advertising Office located in Milan. Three years later he would become the head of the department. Over the next 27 years he created an impressive body of work for Olivetti that would earn him a lasting international reputation.

This book was made in conjunction with a 2003 exhibition that highlighted many of Pintori’s designs for Olivetti.

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Simon Perrin who recently won the Herbert Bayer Olivetti poster contest, just notified me of a website he put together which offers news, info, links to the relief efforts/projects and some of the fundraising initiatives for the recent earthquake in China’s Sichuan province. Simon was living in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan province, when the earthquake hit.

You can find more info about the relief efforts here.

Thanks to everyone who submitted their reason for wanting the Herbert Bayer Olivetti poster! After a week of voting, we closed the polls last friday. We’re proud to announce that Simon P. from the Sichuan Province of China reeled in the most votes. He won with his submission, “I live in china, my walls are bare, inspiration comes via a slow broadband connection.” Simon has a shiny new poster coming his way.

Keep an eye out for Simon’s upcoming T-shirt line at escape artist apparel.

Its time to Vote! Round of thanks to everyone that submitted their reason of why they must have the Herbert Bayer Olivetti poster. We selected our 5 favorite entries last night. You can vote for your favorite and watch the results in the polls section in the far right column. Polls close at 11:30 AM next friday (25th of april). The person with the most votes wins!

Go for it, vote now! Just takes a few seconds.

Grain edit reader Andreas Samuelsson sent in this sweet image of the Olivetti Divisumma 18 calculator. It was designed by Mario Bellini in 1973.

On a side note, be sure to check out Andreas wonderful illustration work here.

(image via Dentaku Museum)

Win this Herbert Bayer Olivetti Poster !
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If you missed our last Olivetti Poster contest, it’s not too late to win on grain edit. On Friday April 25th, 2008 one lucky winner will be taking home the Herbert Bayer poster seen above. This is not an original, but rather a reissue of the original designed by Herbert Bayer for the Olivetti Divisumma calculator in 1953.

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Congratulations to Jessica Taylor of the UK! We pulled her name out of a bright orange Ikea trash can just a few minutes ago. She is now the proud owner of the Raymond Savignac poster seen above!

Thanks to everyone for signing up for this giveaway. We received a ton of emails.

Stay tuned for the next giveaway!

Hey everyone, we justed posted the latest grain edit giveaway.
Click here for a chance to win a Raymond Savignac poster from Olivetti.

Congratulations to Jessica Taylor of the UK! On Dec. 14th, 2007 we randomly pulled her name out of an orange trash can. She is now the new owner of the Raymond Savignac poster seen above.

Thanks to everyone that signed up. We received a ton of emails.

Stay tuned for our next giveaway!

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Win this Raymond Savignac poster!
On Friday Dec 14th, 2007 we will be giving away 1 Raymond Savignac poster (seen above). This is not an original but rather a reissue of the original poster Savignac created for Olivetti in 1953. We just brought in brand new copies from the Olivetti Society and we decided to give one away. This is your chance to have a little Savignac for the holidays!

Sounds great, but how do I enter to win?
Fill in the Contact form below with your name, email address and the words “Let me win the poster” in the subject line and we will add your name to the drawing. On Dec.14th we will randomly select one name from a trash can and the results will be posted on the site.

Your email address and our 100% spam free Guarantee:
We promise we will not sell, share, trade or publicize your email address in any shape or form. In addition, we will not “spam” your inbox.

so go for it! enter now!