entries Tagged as [design history]
Red bus
‘One of twelve beauties built by General Motors, this is a self-contained display and transport vehicle created by the GM design staff under Harley Earl’s direction’
Art deco bus (above) from GM’s ‘Parade of Progress’ traveling exhibit.
Gallery with many more concepts here.
Found via Boing Boing
Free Conqueror fonts!
‘Jean François Porchez was approached at the end of 2009 to create a set of typefaces to relaunch the Conqueror papers collection.’
Jean François Porchez’s beautiful Conqueror fonts are based on some great historical design eras – and are available free via Arjowiggins Creative Papers thru end of March 2012.
The fonts themselves are mostly caps and missing a few punctuation marks – but they also have similar widths, cool alternate characters (such as swashes) and 3D carved versions (as extras) – making them vastly interchangeable. And who knows, since they’re free, maybe they’ll conqueror the design world.
A standard commercial font license applies. Grab em here.
More details here.
Zed
Pictured: Cap Z from Penabico, a new font based freely on ‘the copperplate script styles to be found in the Universal Penman.’
Available at MyFonts. And currently trending as one of their best sellers.
More detail here.
Orzechowski letters Star Wars
‘Orzechowski modeled his lettering on the Flash Gordon newspaper strips of the 1930s. Another influence was Robert Crumb’s Zap Comix: Orzechowski recognized that Crumb’s title work was clearly derived from the brush techniques of that same era, the 1920s and 30s.’ –Wiki
One of the first times I really became aware of hand lettering in comic books came with Marvel Comics’ 1977 Star Wars movie adaptation. From issue #2 thru #5, the lettering had this smooth, compact quality to it. With cool titles up top.
Behind the scenes was lettering artist Tom Orzechowski – working for the Mighty Marvel Bullpen. [Read more →]
The real Comic Sans
‘It’s just a shame they couldn’t have used just the original font, because [Comic Sans is] a real mess.’ -Dave Gibbons, interview in The Guardian
Sick of Comic Sans? Why not try something more authentic . . . .
Vincent Connare based the design of his Comic Sans fonts on the lettering work of comic book illustrator Dave Gibbons. With infamous results.
But the comic book lettering gurus at Comicraft have something a bit better: Real Dave Gibbons fonts.
They won’t come preloaded free on your PC. But if you want to put your money where your mouth is, the ‘DaveGibbons’ fonts – available in upper, lowercase, international, journal and splash page titling versions – should be up to the task at hand.
Snag em here. Multiple purchase options available, including some ‘Gibbous Packs.’
SNAFU!
‘The cartoons were intended for an audience of soldiers . . . The depictions of Japanese and Germans are quite stereotypical by today’s standards, but were par for the course in wartime U.S.’
Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.
The Private SNAFU shorts were produced by by Warner Bros. for the War Department. The 1943 Spies short (above) was directed by Chunk Jones and written (in verse, of course) by Theodor ‘Dr. Seuss’ Geisel. With vocals by the great Mel Blanc.
SNAFU is in the public domain – free downloads here.
Giant bomber!
‘This looks like a job for Superman’
WWII stereotypes with a giant aircraft carrier bomber as the prize. From 1942.
Could have sworn I saw a similar airplane stunt in the last Superman movie.
Gremlins!
‘Victory Thru Hare Power’
Before Gremlins (also a Warner Bros. production), the tables were turned on Bugs Bunny in Falling Hare.
Below, Hitler fights some ‘Gremlins from the Kremlin.’
handpicked posts
a piano falls in old manhattan
tetro and typography
it’s typography: film, song and dance
ghosts of gustov klimt
the great times new roman controversy
picking fonts
kapitaal
defining terms: design is not decoration
garcia's 'pure design'
'enhance that image!'
magic highway remixed
the cynic
rad anthem
Brought to you by man dom-
buy my fonts
go shopping
mehalloreads
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Color: A Natural History of the Palette
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Modern Dog: 20 Years of Poster Art
Gaberbocchus Press: An Experiment in Publishing, 1948-1979
Advertising Art in the Art Deco Style
Googie Redux: Ultramodern Roadside Architecture
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