1970s

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 RumpÄ“ters who designed many of the covers of Jauna Gaita during the 1950s-1970s, wonderfully captured the spirit of this era.

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Bare Knuckles poster circa 1977

Last night a few of us went down to the Parkway theater in Oakland to check out the classic blaxploitation film Bare Knuckles. The film stars Robert Viharo as Bounty Hunter Zachary Kane who’s on the hunt for a motorcycle riding, masked serial killer ninja! It doesn’t get any better then that!

Bare Knuckles is one of several films that inspired Quentin Tarantino’s GrindHouse flick. Tarantino loaned his copy of Bare Knuckles to Will Viharo (son of Robert Viharo) for the viewing. Robert was in the audience last night and joined his son on stage after the film. It was awesome to see this guy in person after he just kicked two tons of serial killer ninja butt a few minutes before.

One of my favorite parts of the film is Zach’s training session. One minute he’s whaling on a punching bag and the next he’s in the lotus position playing the flute! Now thats Bad Ass!

Check the soundtrack for the film as well. It was reissued recently. Vic Caesar put together a gritty funk masterpiece.

also worth checking:
Nikkatsu Action Cinema

Technorati Tags: films,1970s,blaxploitation

Israeli environment stamps - 1975 designed by Eliezer Weishoff

Beautiful stamps addressing both noise and industrial pollution.
Be sure to check out this modern stamp from Israel as well.

Issues of Icographic magazine 1971-1978 produced by ICOGRADA

Icographic (The review of International Visual Communication Design) was founded by John Halas in 1971. It was designed / edited by Patrick Wallis Burke and released quarterly, well atleast for the first year. The journal addressed the broader areas of visual communication such as semiotics, communication theory, ergonomics of visual communication and the psychology of perception. Of the four issues I have, two deal with Pictorgrams, Isotypes and symbols. I’m fascinated by the work of Otto Neurath and Otl Aicher (both of which are featured within the Journal) so it was a real pleasure to stumble unto these issues. In addition to Neurath and Aicher, there are sections on signing systems designed by Yugoslav architect Radomir Vukovoc and Pictograms by Ian McLaren and Claude Braunstein.

The layout and content remind me of another design journal produced during the same general time period titled Dot Zero. I will be covering Dot Zero in a future post but, for now enjoy the Icographic slideshow above.

(t) Jazz/ Rock voicings for the contemporary keyboard player c1974
(b) Jazz Improvisation for keyboard players c1978

I picked up these two books over the weekend. They are part of an instructional jazz book series produced in the 1970s for Studio publications and recordings. I’m not sure who responsible for the cover design but, I like how he limited it to a few simple shapes and the type. Both books are written by Dan Haerle, but there are others in the series by Rufus Reid and Ramon Ricker.

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)

1871-1971 census stamp

Pretty bugged stamp from the Canadian Post.
Designed by Hans Kleefeld.

(via the great Canadian design resource)

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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The Asian American Film Festival is in San Francisco now, so I had a chance to check out “Blood Brothers” which is one of the more recent films produced by John Woo. Anyone else seen this? Overall I thought it was pretty cheesy, but the ending wasn’t too bad. On the way to the theater I stopped by my friend Cool Chris’s record shop. Chris runs Groove Merchant which is notorious amongst beat diggers and record collectors as the place to go if you want to find rare jazz, funk and library lps. While I was there Chris hit me off with a copy of the record above.

The John Hawkins lp seen above is part of a series of 45s (the little records..7″) initiated by CAPAC (Composers, Authors and Publishers Association of Canada Limited). I’m less concerned with the music on this album as I am with the design of the logo. The rounded letters take form as records with the lines of different weights creating the grooves. It wasn’t uncommon to see logo treatments like this in the 1970s and I think this is one of the better examples.

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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Stedelijk Museum program / poster c1970 - Wim Crouwel - designer

Total Design was responsible for designing many of the catalogs/ programs for the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam during the late 1960s and early 1970s. The program above was created by Wim Crouwel and Jolijn van de Wouw (of Total Design) for an exhibition in 1970. The program folds out to a full size poster that reveals a huge letter “A” and the number “7″ which stands for Atelier 7. Atelier translates to “work shop” in English so, this might be referencing a gallery number or possibly the name of the exhibition. On the other side of the poster, it lists the artists and their artwork featured in the gallery.

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I wish I could tell you more about this one. I pulled this out of a book I have on 70s + 80s Japanese graphic design. All the text is in Japanese so, I have no clue on who designed this. Anyone recognize this work? I have no idea why theres a gaggle of balloon animals chillin in a tree. If someone could translate the text below the animals, that would be great.

BarryBlog has posted a rare glimpse of some in-house publications for Herman Miller. They were produced in conjunction with the great design thinker Ralph Caplan, and designed by John Massey of Container Corporation of America fame. I’m drooling! I’d love to read these. Maybe we can get the good people at Barry Blog to make photo copies.

Enjoy!

Vintage modern stamps from Israel - 1975 Arbor day collection

Ok we’re back. I hope everyone had a great weekend. Pretty chill one here. Watched Dial M for murder by Hitchcock. Tonight it’s either Stray Dog by Akira Kurosawa or Brute force by Jules Dassin.

Now onto the stamps….
Great stuff going on here. Johnny blue bird is eating cherry nugs off a psychedelic tree. Meanwhile on the left, rectangle legs is rolling deep in lollipop marsh.

1972 Olympics rowing regulations booklet

Tons of great work in the Otl Aicher design group on Flickr. Includes posters, brochures, books, stamps, packaging, corporate reports, even a wooden version of Waldi the 1972 Munich Olympics mascot. Projects include the 1972 Olympics identity, Lufthansa and work from his days at HFG Ulm.

Clean, minimal, modern.. I love it. I could look at this stuff all day.
Many thanks to Adam for passing this link along.

Side note - got some cornbread today. Man I love this stuff. Is it even bread? Its like muffin cake.

Cool cover by Rudolf Schucht for Hoechst News 65. I believe Hoechst News 65 was the in house magazine for the German life science company Hoechst AG (now Sanofi-Aventis). For the cover design Rudolf pulled elements from the articles contained within the magazine. The top two icons refer to Italian cuisine. The item below is an ampule of Salvarsan used in clinical testing against Syphilis. The background graph refers to work by Dr. Walter Seifried.

I couldn’t find much information on the graphic design work of Rudolf Schucht. If anyone knows anything about him, please send me an email or leave a comment.

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!)

Belgium stamp - 1970s - Lots of hair!

Happy New Years!
I hope everyone had a good time last night. Unfortunately, it was a chill night at home for myself, since I picked up a cold over the weekend.

We have some exciting new interviews and features that we will be posting over the next few weeks and months. Stay Tuned!

Flying hot dogs, Cows turning into hamburgers and a 2000 pound stick of butter turning into the most disgustingly awesome popcorn you’ve ever seen. You’ll get it all in this animated psychedelic Pepsi commercial from Peter Max.

(via Made in England)

Bruno Bozzetto : Viva Gli Abominevoli Sciatori
Cool cover for this obscure kids book by Mr. Bozzetto from the 1970s. Bruno is mostly know for his contributions to animated film. He has created hundreds of animated shorts and was nominated for an oscar in 1991 for a film entitled “grasshoppers”. You can read his complete biography at the official Bruno Bozzetto website.

I go bananas for these Eastern European matchbox labels. I bought a complete run from 1958-1978 about a year ago and I still can’t get over how sick these things are. Most of these labels are 2-3 tones and some are completely off register. They look like little silkscreen posters (Most of these labels are 1.5 inches wide by 1.75 inches tall) . These labels make perfect posters for your kid’s doll house or inspirational art for your hamster to look at as he is jogging in his exercise wheel.

Plenty more of these little guys coming!

I don’t care what you call this sport (soccer, football, aggressive footsies), this ticket is sick! Stick figures rule!

(via cogtr1996)

Great match box label from Czechoslovakia. The label is from the late 1970s. We will be posting more labels from our collection over the next week.

The 1978 World Cup was held in Argentina between June 1 and June 25. Argentina would go on to beat the Netherlands 3-1. The men in this poster seem to be celebrating victory, but this seemingly innocent poster has a very dark story to tell.

Argentina had suffered a military coup only two years before the cup and was in the middle of a dirty war against left wing sympathizers. Up to 30,000 people “disappeared” during this time. These events coincided with a campaign of political repression involving dictators from other South American countries dubbed “operation condor“. Thousands of people were tortured and many lost their lives.

(via iso50)

Bundesgartenschau is a biannual Federal horticulture show in Germany. It has been in existence since 1951. Every 2 years they switch locations within Germany. So far the event has been held in Hamburg, Koln and Hannover amongst other cities. The logo above was created for the 1975 exhibition in Mannheim.

The DBG website contains photos and information of all the Bundesgatrenschau shows. Highlights include the Hamburg 1973 poster (Man with a slinky as a beard riding a tugboat across a sea of flowers..say what?) and the 1957 show poster designed by Herbert Leupin.

Super rad skiing poster by E. Mariani for La Rinascente. Hundreds of colored vertical arrows make up the image.Year of creation 1974. Everytime I see this poster it makes me think of the White Stripes video with the legos.

Jose B has put together a nice collection of Citroen brochures at his website citrobe.org. I’m not a huge fan of the actual car but boy do I love these brochures. Just look at that type flying out the trunk in the bottom picture!