Grain Edit: The Year in Review

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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 stampsSmall 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:

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Swiss Designer Hans Hartmann

publicity and graphic design in the chemical industry - hans neuburg

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

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

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

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Alain Gree – l’electricitie c1969

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Israeli Environment stamps designed by Eliezer Weishoff in 1975

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53 Years of Jauna Gaita Magazine

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Issues of Icographic magazine 1971-1978 produced by ICOGRADA

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Concepts – Promotional book for US Steel c1961

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Giovanni Pintori exhibition catalog c2003

Dutch type specimen sheet

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!

Harry Sierman: Design, Posters and Books

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de openbare bibliotheek poster, amsterdam 1968

This is absolutely one of my favorite posters of all time. Design by Harry Sierman.

Harry studied at the Amsterdam Institute for Arts Education and later the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. After graduation he got a job with the Dutch publishing house: Querido  He worked there for many years and became well known for his book design skills.

Back in January I had the chance to trade a few emails with Harry’s daughter in law. She was nice enough to send me a copy of a small book that focuses on Harry’s graphic design and typography work from the 1940s till 2003. I’ve attached a few scans from the book below.

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Everything is OK

Everything is OK

San Francisco design champ Christopher Simmons wants you to get involved. Christopher is a former AIGA SF president and the owner/operator of Mine, an SF design studio. Everything is OK is a social experiment, equal parts activism, commentary, and a call to action to fight complacency. So get off your butt already!

EIOK is a nominee at the People’s Design Awards! Vote, vote, vote.

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Grady McFerrin is Movin!

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Grady McFerrin moving announcement circa 2001

This one goes out to all the Grady Mcferrin fans up in this piece!

With the recent release of Grady’s line of products on Chronicle books, I dug up this golden corn from my nugget bank. This moving announcement dates back to 2001 and marks his transition to San Francisco (I think he lives in Brooklyn now). It’s hard to believe, but I found this at a yard sale a few years ago.  I have no idea how many he printed, but my guess is that it’s pretty limited.

The announcement looks like it was silkscreened. The dimensions are 7.25″ x 5″. To the Gocco experts out there: are those dimensions achievable with the large Gocco model?

Holla if you love Grady, Holla if you love Gocco, Holla if just love hollaring!

**Note – I erased the address and phone number, so all you McFerrin stalkers couldn’t go to the SF address looking for his old clothes and used pencil shavings.

Delicious Design League: Posters, Design and Illustration

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Pinback poster

Lots of good stuff going on in the land of Belgian waffle cookie trees. Delicious is serving up this beauty along with some other tasty treats in their shop.

(Via the always yummy Pica + Pixel)

Richard Alan Roberts: Graphic Design & More

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Yummy geometric type served upon gelatinous globs of red and blue. I’ll take it. Get some here.

Matchboxes designed by Jose Maria Cruz Novillo + Olmos

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Fosforos Del Pirineo – Abcdario Animal (Animal Alphabet) Spain 1970s?

I found these recently. Super cool matchbox covers designed by Cruz Novillo + Olmos. The matchboxes feature an illustration of an animal for each letter of the alphabet. Hard to pick a favorite, but I think I have to go with the yellow oso (bear) loco. I think he cloned himself, because I notice I have two of the letter “O”.

Animal roll call. What’s your favorite matchbook cover from the set?

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Maraid

czech matchbox labels

This is turning out to be Maraid day. She has an amazing collection of photography and ephemera, plus she always posts beautiful labels to our Mid Century Modern Sticker, Label and Stamp Club.

Get lost in her collection.

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Vintage numbers

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Race numbers from various UK based races

I love thick fat slabs of juicy numberage and Maraid is serving it up big time. Come get some of these vintage fatties here.

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