the mehallo blog. beta.

NBC was cool once.

In the 1980s, not everyone had MTV. Our (small) cable company didn’t.

The only broadcast alternative for music videos was NBC’s Friday Night Videos, which aired after Johnny Carson.

Above, the Emmy-winning title graphics by Annabel Jankel and Rocky Morton (more on them in a post tomorrow).

And here’s most of the videos from the above show (minus Prince and Morris Day; not readily embeddable). With some vintage closing credits and more at the end  . . . .

Tags: cool finds, design history, typography by steve
1 comment  . . .   

Vintage covers by Alvin Lustig and more. Available thru Out of Print.

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, fashion, publication design by steve
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‘A chance to re-design any classic book is always exciting. Classics usually allow for a more personal interpretation, since most people are already vaguely familiar with the premise of the books, and I didn’t have to compete with one well-known cover, as I might have with a more recent book.’

The work of Jim Tierney. More book jacket details here.

Would make Doc Brown proud.

Found via ColourOfAir and Jessica Hische

Tags: cool finds, design history, education, fonts, illustration, publication design, typography by steve
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For some reason, this video reminds me of the Kabob House/Used Car Lot. It also reminds me of a lunch I once had at a rather odd Basque restaurant in Bakersfield.

I know, I’m mixing it all up.

It IS all mixed up.

My office walls. Also the same color. Kinda freaking out right now.

Found via i love typography

Tags: cool finds, design history, music by steve
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I hadn’t been in Fresno for at least 10 years. The big commercial strip in town is Blackstone Avenue. This main drag was once plagued with zoning problems and mismanagement – it became known for creating some of the worst overgrown sprawl in the state.

Blackstone was partial inspiration for my Greater Suburban Strip illustration, which is a composite of a few strips in California; including El Camino Real, Stevens Creek in San Jose and most of Los Angeles.

Today, Blackstone is a mix of abandoned big boxes and oddly clever, repurposed businesses. New tenants are making new out of what is gone. Newest: Furniture City. I ate lunch in a combination Kabob House/Used Car Lot. Snapped some shots on the way out.

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, photography, thoughts by steve
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Some Vintage Tony the Tiger ads voiced by the great Thurl Ravenscroft (1914-2005). From the Mad Men era, of course.

Tags: cool finds, culinary, design history by steve
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‘Verschillende Science Fiction verhalen’

Dutch designer Dick Bruna’s vintage book covers.

Flickr set here. Online archive here.

Tags: cool finds, design history, education by steve
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Academy of Art graduate design student Alex Cornell’s super cool Playboy rebrand project. Details (and additional photos) at the ISO50 Blog.

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, education, fashion, illustration by steve
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SOTA’s Font Aid IV jumped into action a few weeks ago – to benefit the victims of the recent earthquake in Haiti.

The result was released today. A collaborative font.

purchase
Snag your copy of the Coming Together font thru any of these sources:

[1] Ascender Fonts

[2] Veer

[3] MyFonts

[4] FontShop

The font sells for 20 bucks (US) and all proceeds go to Doctors Without Borders to help the people of Haiti recover from the devastating earthquake.

all ampersands
The font consists of just under 400 ampersands from type designers from around the world – including myself (see below).

For more about ampersands, history and use, read Steve Matteson’s article here. For more about Font Aid IV, go here.

That be mine

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

‘Baby, you’re my Univers. Meeting you was no Akzidenz. I can see that we‘ve got a great Futura. We were Meta be together.’

Handmade by Machine’s Just My Type greeting cards. Details here. Unfortunately, only UK-shipping is available for now.

Found via cebe design

Tags: cool finds, design, design history, fonts, illustration, typography by steve
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So this past semester, I added a more comprehensive safety lecture to the learning to use an X-Acto knife portion of my beginning design classes.

And this was the first semester that some serious injuries actually occurred.

I’m thinking I should have not warned them so conscientiously. Usually I just say, a sharp X-Acto can cut thru pretty much anything. Paper, boards, plastic triangle, fingers. That’s my disclaimer. Don’t want to go into any more detail.

Elsa Mora does cool things with cut paper. She has a great X-Acto tutorial here.

(Yes designers still use X-Acto knifes. Mostly for presentation/mockups. And yes, I was once trained as a paste-up artist; something I could fall back on if computers just suddenly vanish. Sort of. Ahh, the smell of fresh Amberlith in the morning!)

Found via Natasha Newton

Tags: cool finds, design history, education by steve
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