1960s

Label from Bardola Hoyfjellshotel in Geilo, Norway - c1960s?

I think I’m obsessed with modern Scandinavian design from the 1950s- 1960s. First it was furniture and kids books, then Ceramics and now luggage labels! Where does it end? What’s in that Nordic water?

also worth checking:
Swiss Modern luggage label
Modern luggage label from Portugal

After the second World War many Latvian writers were relocated to different areas of the world. Many ended up in Great Britain, Canada and the USA. Living in these new lands they began their own periodicals and publication houses. A new generation of writers emerged. “Living in foreign lands and surrounded by other cultures, these writers strove to capture the influences of modernism.” * One of the magazines that surfaced during this time period was Jauna Gaita (the new course). Ilmārs Rumpēters who designed many of the covers of Jauna Gaita during the 1950s-1970s, wonderfully captured the spirit of this era.

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Beautiful advertisement for Arkwright-Interlaken, Inc designed by Malcolm Grear Designers. Dates back to the early 1960s.

Julius Shulman, photograph of Case Study House #21 (Pierre Koenig, architect)

Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury—opening May 17 at the Oakland Museum of California—looks at the painting, architecture, furniture design, decorative and graphic arts, film, and music that launched mid-century modernism in the United States, and established Los Angeles as a major American cultural center. The exhibition continues through August 17, 2008.

Birth of the Cool is accompanied by a 300-page illustrated book (published with Prestel Publishers, 2007), which provides a thorough reassessment of the era.

El Gran Robo Del Tren De San Trinian - c1968

I recently received an email for this great new blog that focuses on Cuban posters. The site is a wonderful resource for posters produced by ICAIC, OSPAAAL, COR, Casa de las Americas and other cultural, political and social agencies in Cuba.

Poster for Salon auto geneve - march 14-24 1963

Easily in my top ten favorite posters.

Salon Auto Geneve (Salon International de l’Auto) is an annual auto show held in March in the Swiss city of Geneva. I admire Brun’s decision to represent the event in an a very abstract way. The white circles used as automobile headlamps look like they are derived from a compositional exercise in one of Armin Hofmann’s classes. This would make sense since Donald Brun taught at the Allgemeine Gewerbeschule (Basel School of Design) along side Hofmann.

also worth checking out:
Poster by Swiss designer Hans Neuburg

Sabena label from the late 1950s/ early 1960s

Wow, amazing luggage label from Belgian airlines Sabena. This label is promoting travel to Africa. Look at those colors! I love how the illustrator portrays the faceted shades of the girl’s face in bold “Fauvist” hues.

This is part of Art of the Luggage label’s amazing collection of luggage labels on flickr. Please check them out. They were nice enough to add the label to grain edit’s mid century modern sticker, label and stamp club as well.

Be sure to check these luggage labels we’ve posted in the past.
Modern Swiss label
Portuguese modern label

Richard Erdoes - Policemen around the world c1967

Richard Erdoes was an author and illustrator. He was born in Vienna, Austria in 1912 and later immigrated to the United States. The book above is one of a 3 part “around the world” series. The other two books were Musicians of the world and Peddlers and Vendors of the world. Both of which, were produced around the same time in the late 1960s.

It looks like Erdoes’ used a combination of Pen/ Ink and gouache to achieve the finished look found in the images above. This reminds me of the work of Miroslav Sasek who I believe used gouache as well.

Many thanks to grain edit reader Thorsten Schmidt for sending the following Richard Erdoes link in:
Richard Erdoes magazine illustration

If you like Richard Erdoes you might be  interested in our post on Ryohei Yanagihara.

Matchbooks for Hunt-Wesson by Graphic designer Saul Bass

Jon (Insect54) posted this amazing set of matchbooks on flickr last night. I’ve never seen these before. I’m digging the pixelated flower in the lower left corner and the orange and yellow pattern on the 3rd down, 3rd to right is really nice. Saul designed the logo for Hunt-Wesson in 1964 so I’m guessing this work was produced right around the same time.

Can’t get enough of Saul?
check these out:
Henri’s Walk to Paris - children’s book illustrated by Saul Bass
San Francisco International Film Festival poster
Saul Bass’s Case study house

Concepts - Promotional book for US Steel c1961

Industrial designer / illustrator Syd Mead is well known for his vehicle designs and backgrounds for classic science fiction films like Blade Runner and Aliens during the 1980s. Long before these projects, he produced a series of conceptual illustrations and paintings for US Steel. The futuristic automobiles, diagrams and environments were published in several promotional books during the early 1960s.

These books are intense to look at. The full page spreads are over 2 feet wide and heavily detailed. Keep in mind when viewing the images above, that this work is very early on in his career, as he had recently finished his studies at Art Center in Pasadena.

Zurcher Kunstler in der Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland- c1966

Beautiful poster by Swiss graphic designer and author Hans Neuburg.

If you like this, check Publicity and graphic design in the chemical industry  a book by Hans Neuburg.

(via Crabstick’s killer Flickr photostream)

Graphic design magazine - japan 1965

Running with a Japanese theme today. Can’t stop thinking about those flicks I caught this past weekend. Great cover for a Japanese graphic design magazine from the sixties.

Also worth checking out, is this Japanese poster we posted.

Jerry Fujio and Jo Shishido in A Colt is my Passport c1967

I had a chance to check out a few films from the No Borders, No Limits: 1960s Nikkatsu Action Cinema series this weekend. These super stylized films produced by the Nikkatsu film studio were heavily influenced by Hollywood and the French New Wave. The Seijun Suzuki films re-released by Criterion are part of the Nikkatsu catalog. If you’ve seen any of Suzuki’s films, it will give you an idea of the films featured in the No Borders, No Limits series.

The series focused on some of the more obscure films to come out of the Nikkatsu studio. All 3 films I saw were great. I just wish I could of seen the other 3. You can find out more about these films at Outcast Cinema.

1960s Japanese book cover designs

I don’t know much about the company that published the book on the right, but the book on the left was published by Kappa in 1963. Keep your eyes out for Kappa, they have other cool covers.

Slick 45 record sleeve with a nice modern pattern for the German label Heliodor. Anyone know what typeface that is?

(Via Kavel’s awesome record envelope)

Vårt svenska samhälle - by Sixten Björkholm c1963

Cool book cover illustration by Staffan Wiren. Great example of swedish modern illustration from the 1960s.

On a sidenote, just talked to my friend Joe Beats and he’s got a killer mix online that he put together for designer vinyl toy store Munky King. Listen to the mix here.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

(Staffan Wirén book cover via David at the Klockarp institute)

From the book - Jacqueline S Casey Thirty years of design at MIT

Beautiful work from graphic designer Jacqueline Casey. It mentions in the book she was inspired by Karl Gerstner, Kurt Wirth and Anton Stankowski.

“In the early 1950s, John Matill, a writer and editor, founded the MIT office of publications. He was joined in 1952 by Muriel Cooper. Cooper was among the first designers ever hired by a university to represent it graphically. She and Matill hired Jacqueline Casey to design summer session materials in 1955.” Casey continued to work for MIT until her retirement in 1989. (Taken from the introduction of the book.)

In the first part of our new Record Gallery Series Mike Davis (aka MIKE THE 2600 KING) - uber cool designer for Burlesque of North America has put together a gallery of some of his favorite record covers. This well rounded collection includes covers by design heavyweights like Milton Glaser to design unknowns, as in the case of the local/ private press lps.

In addition, he has created an exclusive dj mix for grain edit with songs taken from the records featured in the gallery. We hope you enjoy it.

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original version

upadated version by Daniel Knef

Several weeks ago I posted a Jacques Nathan Garamond Telefunken poster. One of my comments was the poster would look better if Jacques killed the telefunken logo located to the right of the reel to reel. Grain Edit reader Daniel Knef was nice enough to send us a modified version of the poster minus the logo (see above). I realize this poster would not of been possible without the client and obviously their branding is going to be part of the design. However, its nice to see the design without any distractions.

Many thanks to Daniel for sending us the updated version. Be sure to check out his electronic music compositions at gran où lée.

Pino Tovaglia book - The rule that corrects emotion

In addition to this blog, I own a small design bookstore. As a bookseller, I find it hard to find publishers that consistently produce quality titles. Italian publisher Edizioni Corraini is one of a few publishers that I look forward to their new releases each year. If you own or have seen any Bruno Munari books, you are most likely familiar with their work. They have reproduced dozens of Munari’s books, many of which I own in my personal collection. In addition to the Munari collection, they have produced books on or by Martí Guixé, Enzo Mari, Aoi Huber-Kono (Max Huber’s wife),Taro Miura, Albe Steiner and many others. With this in mind, I was delighted when I received an email from them mentioning that they had been reading Grain Edit and that they would like to send a package my way.

I will cover the contents of the package in several posts. The first being the Pino Tavaglia book seen above.

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Poster for Telefunken c1965

The piece above is one of a series of posters that paris based designer Jacques Nathan Garamond produced for Telefunken. I just wish I could cut out that Telefunken logo. It kind of kills the vibe of this poster. You have all these round edges on the type and the reel to reel player and theres this crazy sharp edge ninja star with lightning bolts.

During the 1950-1960s Garamond began deconstructing objects into geometric shapes. This is evident in the print above as well as his poster work for Air France. I’ll try to scan in some of the Air France posters when I get a chance.

This Land - A Geography of Canada by Edward Wahl c1961
Hans Kleefeld cover designer

Great book discovery by Rosemary Travale.
Hans also designed the original logo for the Toronto Zoo.

Giant Golden Book of Biology - An Introduction to the Science of Life c1961
Text by Gerald Ames and Rose Wyler - Illustrated by Charley Harper

It doesn’t get much better then this. This is Charley in his prime.

“In a style he called “minimal realism”, Charley Harper captured the essence of his subjects with the fewest possible visual elements. When asked to describe his unique visual style, Charley responded:

When I look at a wildlife or nature subject, I don’t see the feathers in the wings, I just count the wings. I see exciting shapes, color combinations, patterns, textures, fascinating behavior and endless possibilities for making interesting pictures. I regard the picture as an ecosystem in which all the elements are interrelated, interdependent, perfectly balanced, without trimming or unutilized parts; and herein lies the lure of painting; in a world of chaos, the picture is one small rectangle in which the artist can create an ordered universe.[cite this quote]

He contrasted his nature-oriented artwork with the realism of John James Audubon, drawing influence from Cubism, Minimalism, Einsteinian physics and countless other developments in Modern art and science. His style distilled and simplified complex organisms and natural subjects, yet they are often arranged in a complex fashion. On the subject of his simplified forms, Harper noted:

I don’t think there was much resistance to the way I simplified things. I think everybody understood that. Some people liked it and others didn’t care for it. There’s some who want to count all the feathers in the wings and then others who never think about counting the feathers, like me.”

- Wikipedia

For those interested, I’ve posted a copy of the Giant Golden book of biology for sale on Ebay.

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Flickr user ex.novo has posted some amazing examples of spanish modern design in advertising from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. The ads are taken from magazines/ journals titled “Clínica Rural” and “Glosa”. Anyone know anything about these journals? Most of the advertisements seem to be related to pharmaceutical products so it’s a great follow up to my previous post on Swiss modern design in the chemical industry.

Big ups to Mike from Burlesque for dropping this gem on me.

Publicity and graphic design in the chemical industry - Hans Neuburg 1967
(Chemie Werbung und Grafik)
Contributions by Josef Muller Brockmann

Clap your hands if you love swiss design.

This is got to be one of the best books on graphic design in the chemical industry. Ha! this probably the only book on graphic design in the chemical industry. Most of the design work in the book is for pharmaceutical companies. Companies include J R Geigy and Ciba Aktiengesellschaft, both located in Basel, Switzerland.

The index in the back reads like the whos who of Swiss design. Designers include:Karl Gerstner, Herbert Leupin, Siegfried Odermatt, Hans Erni, Max Schmid, Fred Troller and Kurt Wirth amongst others.

Just look at the pictures above, the work is incredible. Anyone have any nominations for pharmaceutical/ chemical companies that have great design? Maybe we should put together a top 5 list. For example, the always fun top 5 favorite poisonous gas logos.

Also of interest, this Hans Neuburg poster design.

Hotel Rigi - Brunnen, Switzerland

Dynamite vintage label design from the Swiss.

Some great book covers in the Dick Bruna Flickr group.

(image via onno de wit)

Quarteto em Cy - Quarteto em Cy (1966), for Elenco

Dynamite record cover for this female vocal group from Brazil. This is a great album. I highly recommend their 1972 Self titled lp as well.

Heres a video of Quarteto em Cy on the Andy Williams show with Marcos Valle. You might recognize the vocals at the beginning of the song. I believe Nicola Conte sampled it.

(via the excellent Loronix)

Alain Gree - l’electricitie c1969 vintage kids book
Published by Casterman as part of the Cadet-Rama Collection

Woah! Pastel overload! Someone went crazy with the pink crayons. I love it though. Alain Gree’s illustrations are great. I can’t get enough of the bubble heads, mod clothes, pop colors and psychedelic scenery. In this book, Alain looks at electricity and how its used. It’s filled with teal buses, pink trolleys and mustard colored sewing machines.

On a related note, I have to give a birthday shout out to my friend Sean. Sean introduced me to Alain’s work so this post seemed fitting for today.

(L) designer: unknown ©1966 (R) designer: J. Venema ©1966
Published by Aula-Boeken in the Netherlands

The recent excitement over Penguin covers has resulted in a renewed interest in paperback book cover design. I’m starting to see discussion groups popping up as well as new books being published on the subject. Several titles come immediately to mind; Seven Hundred Penguins and World Paperback design. In future posts I’ll discuss both of these books as well the as the book covers of dutch designer Dick Bruna. For now enjoy the pieces above.

For further viewing on the subject I Highly recommend:
Ace Jet 170 : Loads of great material here and one of my favorite blogs
The Old timey paperback book covers group on Flickr

(pictures via) world paperback design

1961 Neste Oy Corporate annual report designed by Olli Stelander. Great use of limited color.  This was when drilling for oil was hip, the indie rock (Get your shale on!)  of the energy industries. This annual probably doubled as their tour poster.

For more design work from Finland check my post on Finnish book design.

Just found this great polish blog called pantuniestal. They put together a small collection of polish maps from the 1950s, 60s and 70s. You can see a preview above. Check out the fish that guy in the yellow rain suit caught. That thing has some crazy sharp triangle teeth. Do they have Piranha in Poland or something?

Besides the maps they have some great examples of mid century modern ephemera. Browsing the site I found Czech matchbox labels, vintage cameras, hotel luggage labels etc. In addition to the Polish, there is an English version of the site so you can follow the conversation. Tons of eye candy here.

(via FFFFound!)

(L) Disque Bleu by Henri Favre c1950s (R) Caballero by Pedro Vargas c1960s

It’s the beginning of a brand new year, which means its time to compile the latest list of New Year’s resolutions. For some of you this might include a pledge to quit smoking (again). To kick the habit in style how about a farewell stroll down cigarette poster lane? Flickr user lamade has posted a kick butt (no pun intended) gallery of Tobacco related posters. Lamarde’s blog also features a ton of tobacco related advertising and design.

Israeli first day cover stamp from 1964. Reel to reel electronic computer and punch card. This looks like some weird instrument that only Simeon from the Silver apples would know how to play or maybe Zamfir the pan flute guy. I bet he could play anything.

Fortuna or the typeface formerly known as Fortune also known as Volta first arrived on the scene in 1955. No wonder why the layout of the type specimen booklet seen above is yodeling with schizophrenia. This type face is having an identity crisis! Even if the name is confusing, the design is still beautiful.

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Direct mail advertisement for Swissair designed by Robert Roser. Most likely from the late 1950s or early 1960s. Hoot!

vrije tijd-blije tijd c1960

Modern dutch poster from graphic designer Jim Brair. Killer example of early sixties design. Wow, Thats all I can say.

(via VanSabben on ebay)

As far as I know this is the only kids picture book illustrated by designer Saul Bass. Saul provides a 60s pop color backdrop for the text written by Leonore Klein. The book was published by Young Scott books in 1962.

Henri’s walk to Paris is the story of young boy who lives in Reboul, France that dreams of going to Paris. One day, after reading a book about Paris he decides to pack up a lunch and head for the city. Along the way he gets tired and falls asleep under a tree. This is when the story really gets good. I’m not sure if I should spoil the end for you, but lets just say it involves a pencil stealing bird with a band aid on its face.

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Sticker for Bundesgartenschau Stuttgart - 1961

The post earlier today was inspired by a sticker (seen above) I found over the weekend. I wasn’t sure what to make of this sticker when I first saw it. It looks like a giant albino bird sitting on top of the Toronto Needle. After researching the event (Bundesgartenschau) I now believe its an illustration of a weathervane. Since Bundesgartenschau is a garden/ landscaping show it would make sense that the bird’s tail feathers are flowers.

Visit the previous post (Get your Bundesgartenschau on!) for more information regarding this garden show and the graphics behind it.

What did they feed these kids in the 60s? Their HUGE! They have no chance of riding the funliner considering their heads are bigger then the whole plane. I don’t think they want to ride in it though, I think they want to eat it.

Cool kids activity book from 1964 produced for United Airlines. Illustrations by Dick Flor. Includes a tragic tale of some campers getting their precious hamburger buns stolen by some juvenile chipmunks. Great stuff!

Several years ago The Finnish Book Arts Committee produced a retrospective entitled 60 Years of Best Finnish Book Design. The online exhibition includes illustrations and layout by Tove Jansson, Erik Bruun, Jukka Pellinen, Timo Sarpaneva, Markku Reunanen, Aleksander Lindeberg and Oili Tanninen amongst others. It only takes a few minutes to click through the slide show and serves as a wonderful introduction to some of Finland’s finest designers.

The Little Polar Bear who didn’t want to learn to swim c1964. Text by George Theiner with illustrations by Rudolf Lukes. This is one of the tougher kids books to find with illustrations by Mr. lukes. The drawings of the Bears and seals are locked into the book by some sort of sliding paper system. As you you turn the pages the illustrations pop out of the page and bring the characters to life. This book was featured in The San Francisco Center For the Book’s exhibition entitled Show Me a Story: Children’s Books & the Technology of Enchantment.

I was blown away when I saw this nativity poster by Alexander Girard. The poster is for an Exhibition at the Gallery of Art in Kansas City in 1962. The exhibition included 170 Nativity scenes from Girard’s personal collection. Imagine being in a room with 510 wise men and 170 Jesuses!

Thanks to Andy at Reference Library for posting this. If you haven’t been to his blog yet, Please go now! This is a really cool blog.