the mehallo blog. beta.

This is probably my favorite political image: Harper’s Weekly cartoonist Thomas Nast’s take on New York’s William “Boss” Tweed – with money head. Tweed was played by Jim Broadbent in the movie.

Thomas Nast (1840-1902) holds the title of ‘father of the American cartoon’ and along the way ended up turning both donkey and elephant into American political icons.

Prior to Nast’s involvement, ‘It all started with an insult. During Andrew Jackson’s 1828 presidential campaign, his political opponents labeled him a ‘jackass.’ Stubborn as he was, Jackson co-opted the insult and began putting a donkey on his election posters.’ [Read more →]

Tags: art, design history, education, illustration by steve
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Illustration by Al Parker for The American Weekly, November 1958. Details.

Happy Halloween!

Tags: art, cool finds, design history, illustration by steve
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B-movie typography eCards, designed by Will Staehle for TDC. Go here.

And check out Will Staehle’s website here.

Found via Ilene Strizver

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, fonts, typography by steve
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‘Over the 26 years that it was pub­lished, U&lc gathered a fol­low­ing of thou­sands of avid read­ers that eagerly anti­cip­ated each issue. It became the most import­ant typo­graphic pub­lic­a­tion of its time.’

The 1970s looked like the 1970s because of Herb Lubalin.

And the way he did this was thru Upper & lowercase magazine. Tabloid in size, printed on newsprint, U&lc was read by most of the graphic design industry. Within, the fonts and philosophy of Lubalin’s International Typeface Corporation [ITC] stressed letters that were set ‘close, but not touching’ and  . . .  aw, hell, let them touch, overlap and be funky.

By the time I was in design school, the look had fallen out of favor – most ITC fonts were actually banned from use in my homework. ITC’s philosophy was to reinterpret the classics, often into something strangely unique, full of its own style – or a lack of style. Like Helvetica.

The 1970s were all about that. Taking things like Art Deco and doing something totally new with it. [Read more →]

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, illustration, typography by steve
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Entrance to the Mergenthaler Building, old printer’s row, Chicago.

Kate Nash: Nicest Thing, from the album Made of Bricks

Photo by mehallo

Tags: design history, music, photography by steve
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‘Linotype: The Film is a documentary about Ottmar Mergenthaler’s amazing Linotype typesetting machine and the people who own and love these machines today.’

Trailer above, film now in production. More info here.

Music by Iron & Wine

Tags: design history, education, typography by steve
1 comment  . . .   

Film from 1960. Info here.

Tags: cool finds, design history, typography by steve
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‘Old buildings, abandoned hospitals, industrial palaces overgrown with plants and trees  . . .  These places have become hard to find, difficult (or illegal) to access, dangerous to explore  . . .  great to spend the day!’

Photos and website here.

Found via Monsieur Bandit

Tags: cool finds, design history, photography by steve
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Couldn’t resist.

Tags: design history, music by steve
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‘Was only screened in cinemas following complaints from UK TV viewers’

From 2001.

Kylie is really cool. Tho was never a huge fan of her music. But I did buy this album when it came out just because of how the type was handled.

Kylie Minogue’s Body Language, 2004

Tags: design, design history, fashion, music by steve
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Maripol is best known as the stylist of Madonna, circa 1984. She’s worked as an art director, producer, photographer, fashion designer and artist.

This year, she brought back the 80s with Marc Jacobs and her newest book can be snagged here.

Here’s an interview from a few years back. And drop by her (oddly designed) official site here.

Maripol for Marc Jacobs, above; some of Maripol’s Polaroids, below

Madonna: Into The Groove

Tags: design history, fashion, music by steve
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