This, that, and also, etc.

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Over the last couple weeks we have been receiving a lot of introductions and suggestions from readers of our online journal. It is really great to get to know you, so keep the suggestions coming.

The imagery above is the work of Dan Shepelavy. Dan impressed us with a lengthy and informative message, outlining his interests and providing links to recent work and his blog. We look forward to following his blog (love this Rexall Cold Cream tin for obvious design reasons) and hope to collaborate on future projects.

Isetta

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These would be fun to drive down a smooth country road in Europe somewhere... It's the Isetta microcar from the mid-1950s. There's a company recreating electric versions, called the Harrington BB. "The vehicle's incredibly simple drivetrain has no transmission, relying instead on the wide power band of the wheel-mounted electric motors to provide smooth acceleration. There's a simple "forward/reverse" lever to choose your direction. They've clocked about 800 miles driving the prototype around the streets of Saigon, Vietnam without suffering a breakdown. Its main drawback is speed - it has a top speed of only 30 mph (48 km/h), with a range of approximately 60 miles (96 km) on an 8 hour charge."

Via Treehugger: "Have we grown so much in fifty years that we couldn't slow down a bit for safety, and drive such cars again?"


{ 1. Cary Grant, 2. 3. 4. }

Type Tuesday: Rodchenko & Mayakovsky

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Thanks, Derek, for this link recommendation. "Rodchenko tells about his collaboration with the poet Mayakovsky on the design of advertising campaigns for several state companies flourishing under the era of the New Economic Policy, which allowed free enterprise, capitalist competition and private patrons from 1921 to 1928, date of the implementation of the First Five Year Plan. … 'We really were the vanguard of revolutionary art, and each of us in our own field, led the battle for the new Soviet art, even by being against art.'"

Type Tuesday: Postage Stamps by Type Designers

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The Offices of Kat Ran Press is the website of a book designers, typographers and printers Michael and Katherine Russem. They have been compiling a collection of stamps that were designed by typeface designers. Thanks to Kat Ran Press, you can view the various stamps along with brief biographical information and images of their prominent typeface designs.

Scrapatorium

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Angelica Paez has been making collages since she was a young girl. "I probably started as soon as I had safety scissors in my hand as a small kid. I had a love for construction paper then and enjoyed cutting out make-believe scenes using some of my mother's catalogs and magazines. Little has changed since then, except now I use sharp scissors." Visit her sites: Scrapatorium and Scrapiteria.

The Daily Scrapbook

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The Daily Scrapbook by Jessica Helfand. "Combining pictures, words, and a wealth of personal ephemera, scrapbook makers preserve on the pages of their books a moment, a day, or a lifetime. Highly subjective, rich in emotional meaning, the scrapbook is a unique and often quirky form of expression in which a person gathers and arranges meaningful materials to create a personal narrative."

Type Tuesday: Old Spice

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The top image is from the Penrose annual. That particular spice label looks very familiar to me—perhaps my grandmother used to use that brand. The other images are from current ebay auctions, search for "vintage spice tin". A newly discovered blog, No Accounting for Taste, has a post about using vintage spice tins. The image below is from her Flickr stream.

The Penrose Annual 1958

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The Penrose Annual was a showcase of printing and the graphics arts published between 1895 and 1982. Volume 52 (1958) is an extraordinary demonstration of craftmanship—and showmanship! Various examples of specialty printing techniques and paper stocks were submitted by printers from around the world throughout the year, and then bound in the annual. Newspaper samples, tipped-in illustrations, foldouts, inserts, spot colours... the Penrose is perhaps the single most inspiring example of graphic design and printing exuberance that I have seen in a long time—even if it is fifty years old!

In an article in Eye magazine, Steve Hare quotes one of the Penrose's editors: ‘The shaping and fabrication of every volume is an adventure,’ said its editor R. B. Fishenden, in the jubilee 50th edition of 1956. ‘Each is the outcome of a wonderful co-operative spirit – surely unique in a publishing endeavour – which seems to gain impetus in time.’

A large part of the attractiveness of Penrose Volume 52 is the era in which it was produced. I have always been drawn to the colours and design sensibilities of the mid- to late-fifties. My Dad restores old cars, and 1954 Fords were his ongoing projects when I still lived at home. Without a doubt, my love of the Royal Quiet DeLuxe typewriter (1956) is hereditary. {Check this out! An entire article about my Dad's history with cars. You never know what you'll find when you google your own parents.}

Ace Jet 170 is also fond of this particular Penrose edition, but he has photographed many pages that I have not, so between the two of us, you can get an even broader view of the volume. You can see larger images in the Flickr set I created for the Penrose. Thank you to McAra Printing for letting me borrow this annual. I've got my eye on a few other editions on their conference room shelf!

(This is a great colour combination, above.)

(I think this is what my design would look like if I were a graphic artist in the fifties. It's very UPPERCASE.)

Country Home out to pasture

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I don't normally post images such as these, but that doesn't mean that I don't love them. I love stuff, and I love old stuff even more. Looking at interiors in magazines and online, whether authentic and lived-in or professionally styled, is one of my favourite forms of escapism. There are plenty of bloggers out there who post wonderfully inspirational images taken from shelter magazines, such as these from Country Home's website.

It was announced today that Country Home has folded. Country Home had been one of the magazines that I purchased on a regular basis and I had dreamed of someday seeing my Eclectonotes grace its pages. When it comes to my favourite magazines, I purchase them loyally – even if the content is available online on blogs or the company's own website. When a blogger scans magazine pages or takes images from websites it is free publicity and promotion of the magazine so long as the blogger credits the source of the images. (Let's overlook the copyright issues for now.) I wonder how much of a detrimental factor personal shelter blogs are to the paying readership of magazines. In reading multiple favourite blogs, you are essentially curating your own personalized magazine.

Online content may be a small factor in the demise of a magazine such as Country Home, but I think the biggest reason for its failure is that mammoth publishing companies are no longer viable business models. We are seeing this now on a regular basis with big newspaper, magazine and book publishers scaling back.

Finding your niche, staying small, and loving and respecting your customers are the keys to sustainability. These days, you have to think small to think big.

{related post: Bye Bye Blueprint }