Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities

Love this poster for an event called Arthur Erickson & Japan that focuses on modernist architect Arthur Erickson’s journey to Japan in 1961. Not sure who designed it but the big bold type, white text on black, two-column grid and the uneven horizontal strips of color make for a beautiful design.

I wrote about France based studio Hey Ho back in the day and since then they’ve filled their portfolio with drool-inducing work. Like this piece for Éditions Galaade. So yummy and full of grid goodness.

Khoi Vinh and Allan Cole have created Basic Maths, an excellent grid-based theme for Wordpress that includes features like microformats, color-scheme control, full widget support and a key shortcut to display the grid. Not to mention it’s beautifully designed.

You can purchase it for $45. Well worth the price.

My jaw dropped when I saw the work of Herbert W. Kapitzki over at Grain Edit this morning. Never heard of him before today but I’m glad I stumbled upon his work.

Kapitzki was a former student of Willi Baumeister, conceived and designed exhibitions for the state industrial inspection board (Landesgewerbeamt) in Stuttgart in the 1950s and the early 1960s. He later invited by Otl Aicher to teach at the Academy of Design in Ulm.

His poster work is exceptional and I also love his logo and pictograms. What an excellent collection of work but unfortunately the quality of the images are poor. I really wish all of this classic work was better archived. Too many great pieces from great designers are getting lost.

Carl Bernhard Graf (1926–1968) was a Zürich based graphic designer that not many people know about. But the work that he left behind is just as good as the well-known designers of his time.

There isn’t much information on Graf (hence the terrible quality of the photo above) but Jonathan Turner has put together a Flickr set comprised of his work. You can also see more of Graf’s work in the classic design books “Graphic Design in Swiss Industry” and “Publicity and Graphic Design in the Chemical Industry”.

If you have any extra cash laying around, you can pick up an original Graf poster for $350.

After a year of being out-of-print, the excellent collection of t-shirts by Experimental Jetset are being reissued by Yoshi Kawasaki’s new label, Publik.

The first designs available are John & Paul & Ringo & George, New Wave/Neue Welle/Nouvelle Vague, Cu Vi Estas Esperantisto?, Flag/Sabbath/Big and Grow Your Hair. All are available in several color combinations.

I personally have the New Wave/Neue Welle/Nouvelle Vague and Cu Vi Estas Esperantisto? tee’s and they’re awesome. Might have to get these new color combos.

You can get more info on the designs here, here and here.

I love this double-sided A2 poster, by Australia based Hofstede Design, to promote Tobias Frere-Jones’ visit to Melbourne for a conference. Simple and works both folded and opened.

I’ve been working on a 2010 calendar poster that I plan to have letterpressed and figured that it would also work well as a wallpaper. So I put some wallpapers together based on the poster design that features a 2010 calendar and the year written out in English, Italian, French and German. Available in pink and white at 1920x1200.

Studio Von Birken’s work has already been written about on many blogs and I try not to write about work that’s been mentioned everywhere, but their work is too good to ignore. SvB is a New York based boutique studio founded by Katia Küthe & Philipp Müssigmann and their work is excellent. See for yourself.

I’ve been invited by the awesome folks at Coudal to be a guest editor for the month of November. I’ve been a fan of their site for a long time now, so this is a great honor.

I’ll be posting about anything and everything to the Fresh Signals area of the site and if you’re not already subscribed to the feed, you should give it a try. Well worth it.

Erola Boix is a Spanish graphic designer with a superb portfolio that really shows off this designers talent. Pictured here is a promotional poster for DeTank, a design and art collectors site. Also check out the design for the Fundació Palau Newspaper. Perfection.

Erola has recently moved to NYC and is looking for freelance or full-time work.

Gavillet & Rust is a Geneva based design studio consisting of three talented designers, Gilles Gavillet, David Rust and Nicolas Eigenheer. A fine collection of work. Pictured here is a catalogue for the Marc Newson’s Solaris watch.

Via Grafik Cache

Stunning packaging design by Espluga+Associates for Ms Men, a skin care product for men. Makes me want to go out and buy the entire set.

Via The Dieline

Not a massive portfolio but definitely some nice pieces by Vancouver based designer Phil Yamada.

Amsterdam based designer Hans Gremmen’s work is clean, beautiful and extremely well designed. He’s has an exceptional skill for composition and typography that make his designs shine. The poster pictured here is set in the lovely Franklin Gothic.

Via ISO50

Swiss modernist graphic designer Hans Neuburg (1904–1983) is one of the pioneers of the International Typographic Style along with Brockmann, Crouwel, Aicher, Hofmann, Casey. He’s left a collection of stellar work that includes this stunning poster pictured here and as well as this diagonal design. This gallery contains some more of Hans’ excellent poster work.

He also authored the classic design books Moderne Werbe– und Gebrauchsgraphik (1960), Graphic Design in Swiss Industry (1965), Publicity and Graphic Design in the Chemical Industry (1967) and Conceptions of International Exhibition ( 1969).

Hans Neuburg is a graphic design legend.

The previously unavailable typeface Pistilli Roman, designed by Herb Lubalin and John Pistilli, is now available as a font called Eloquent. As of now the only weight available is Regular but better than nothing. I’m looking for to using this gorgeous typeface in a future design.

Lubalin Now will be a new exhibit in the re-located Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography. I’m looking forward to this!

Herb Lubalin (1918–1981) is best known for his wildly illustrative typography and his groundbreaking work for the magazines Avant Garde, Eros, and Fact. On view will be recent posters, publications and motion graphics by internationally recognized graphic designers that spotlight an emerging trend toward expressive lettering and typography. Original sketches, magazines, logotypes, and posters selected from the Lubalin Center Archive will illuminate Herb Lubalin’s influence on contemporary graphic design. Featured artists include Herb Lubalin, Justin Thomas Kay, Non-Format, Matt Owens, Alex Trochut, Post Typography and many more.

CURATED BY
Mike Essl
Alexander Tochilovsky

OPENING RECEPTION
Thursday, November 5, 2009, 6 – 8pm
41 Cooper Square Gallery

EXHIBITION ON VIEW
November 5, 2009 – December 8, 2009

The Netherlands based designer Mike Giesser has just launched a gorgeous new site featuring his stellar work. Very nice.

Inspirational work by Marco Stout, Evelyne Kramer and Rinus van Dam of Stout/Kramer. Their work exhibits Swiss and Dutch influences which creates a fresh modernistic approach. Every piece of well designed and elegant. Stout/Kramer is definitely one of my new favorites.