Paul Gabor - Hungarian Designer

This is an English post about a French article about a Hungarian graphic designer - how's that for being international?

Many (including myself) may not know about the Hungarian graphic designer, Paul Gabor, but viewing this collection of his designs from 1930 to 1956, I think I am beginning to become a big fan of his work. Here is a biographical article about Paul Gabor (translate it). Great stuff!

Garamond v. Garamond

Although I cannot read (nor speak) French, I wanted to like to this great article comparing six different cuts of the typeface Garamond.

A few years ago, my good friend, Ryan Baker, and I worked on a summer project where he was learning font design. As part of his summer, he gathered as many different cuts of Garamond as he could and compared all of the amazing minute details and differences. I am not sure if I would have the patience for that, but this article proves to me, yet again, that in my opinion, Adobe Garamond is the best modern cut of Garamond.

And this is why the internet is awesome: Google will translate the website for you!

Recycled Fluorescent Tube Light

Pretty much a really great idea.

Typography on the Streets!

...are a few links to street typography blogs. Always interesting.

Villatype
TypoTrip

German Body Diagram

This diagram of the human body as a machine is quite fascinating.

Affiches means "posters" in French...

Oh Paris - what an enchanting city. Actually, when I visited, I was really surprised how HUGE Paris is and how much graffiti is everywhere. This is a nice little photo set of Paris walls and old posters that are still hanging on.

Photographs of Airplanes in Flight

Jeffrey Milstein has a great series of photographs of airplanes in flight.

This must be nice artist day.

Pep Montserrat makes some great illustrations.



Yep. I like this work by Will Yackulic.



Some great collage work by Mario Wagner.



And Jules De Balincourt paints some nice paintings.

Typographie!

This is why Europeans are cooler than me.

Hand-Painted Movie Posters

Have you ever seen this poster for the movie "Kill Bill?"



Or how about this poster for "The Matrix 3?"



Click here for more amazing Russian hand-painted movie posters.

Wanderlust...

There is nothing that stirs up all of my passions (travel, printing, ephemera) more than looking at old maps. As Coudal said, despite the fact that there are hundreds of beautiful old maps here, you will get lost.

Marian Bantjes

Marian Bantjes creates amazing hand-drawn work and her recent launch of displays for Saks Fifth Avenue in NYC takes so many amazing forms - including a 12 foot tall plexiglass shoe!

See-Saw Bookshelf

Is Kafka truly heavier than the latest issue of Vogue?

Accidental Billboard Typography

A nice little post about the typographical happenstance of roadside billboards in India. Any of you that have been to India or most anywhere else in the world will recognize this instantly.

Amazing Madness.

Pretty much, Brian Dettmer makes mad-crazy book art. That is all you need to know.

Books. Beautiful Books.

If you are a book nerd like myself, these photos will induce a serious amount of drool. So have a handkerchief ready.

In the year 2000...

The website/blog, Coudal.com (a great design studio and place to get links) has a link to a blog called Paleo-Future.com. It shows old printed material of what people thought the future would look like - and some of it is amazing. Here is a 1910 collection of French prints that depict the year 2000. Also, here is a circa 1900 collection of German prints that foresee the year 2000. Great stuff!

Hand Dryers (or is it driers?)

I had almost forgotten about this, but this Italian Designer blog reminded me that I should link up to my Hand Dryers on Polar Inertia. In 2006, when my wife and I were traveling overseas, I took photographs of hand dryers all over the world. Enjoy!

The Way of All Flesh

The Boat Lullabies has an amazing series of old photographs that were found together in a flea market showing the progression of one woman's life. Simply fascinating!

Ray Fenwick

This is a link I should have posted long ago! Ray Fenwick is an illustrator and designer living and working in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Which is a place I want to visit very badly. He makes INCREDIBLE illustrations and hand-drawn type that will put anyone to shame. He is cleaver, witty, and I would imagine to be a nice guy (although I have never met him).

And, on a completely unrelated note: How to Hide an Airplane Factory

Yankee. Hotel. Foxtrot.

I'm sure most of you have come across this (especially in Wilco's "Yankee Hotel Foxtrot") but I just have to post this up. The Conet Project documents "number stations" that are broadcast over shortwave radio frequencies by unknown sources.

No one knows (or will admit) exactly what they are - but most people speculate that they are/were used for transmissions to covert spies in dangerous countries. The most revealing thing said about the number stations is "... they are what you think they are ... and they are not for public consumption ..."

They are strange, unnerving, and beautiful...

Here is an story by NPR for a simple introduction to this amazing phenomenon.

Here is information from the Internet Archive that has all of the recordings.

Here is another story at strange|beautiful.

Lots of information over at Wikipedia about number stations.

Letterpressed portrait of Gutenberg

This portrait of Johannes Gutenberg was created using 50,688 8-point characters! Amazing!!!

I want one - but I can't read German!

No title needed.

Simple and beautiful photographs by Marshall Sokoloff.

Roman Duszek

If any of your have ever been through the Warsaw Subway, you will have used my former professors information graphics to allow you to smoothly navigate through the underground.

Roman Duszek, Polish designer, started the graphic design program (that I graduated from) at Missouri State University in 1988. He is an incredibly gifted designer and illustrator and instructor. Honestly, I wish I would have paid more attention in his classes (and maybe not skipped out on one of them) - but it was a pleasure to learn under his strict guidance.

Roman presented at the IIID conference in 2004, and this page shows his presentation. Although not for the faint at heart, this is an amazingly thorough demonstration explaining how he identified the users needs for the signage of the metro.

Maps. How I love thee!

Maps mix everything I love: a sense of travel, old paper, old printing technology... These maps are especially amazing. They show the ancient flood paths of the Mississippi River - from Missouri to Louisana

Why I am forever in love with letterpress...

This is a nice five minute video produced about the Firefly Press. It pretty much shows all of the aspects of what I love about letterpress.