‘Chemins de fer de l’état, Cie. Gle. Transatlantique.’

Vintage travel poster, art by Albert Sébille (1874-1953). More here.

The original Van Halen broke up when I was a senior in high school. And yes, I am an old fan of David Lee Roth, read about it here.

And the reunion no one thought would happen happened and the album no one thought would happen was released yesterday. 28 year wait. The sound harkens back (harkens is the word) to Van Halen I and II – apparently the tracks are based on notes written back around 1975–77ish.

The sound is old – with parts feeling like an odd 1990s solo album Dave put out. Album cover design by SMOG, art directed by Jeri Heiden.

New track: Tattoo, with Dave explaining it here

You Really Got Me acoustic

And an update: Dave’s been posting new videos on Vimeo all week. Love the ‘recreational director’ discourse and this one about his dogs.

‘The goal is to incorporate the luxurious fabrics, mixed prints and textures from the 20s while keeping the silhouette modern and figure flattering’

Retro, contemporary and nouveau: Project Runway 9 contestant Fallene Wells is seeking Kickstarter funding for her latest collection.

More info here, Kickstarter here.

‘custom blue silk embroidered with cotton and copper thread’

Detail of the fabric used in the bedroom of Jeanne Lanvin (1867–1946). From her residence on the rue Barbet-de-Jouy, rebuilt at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Found via ArtisphereOnline

Poster for No Limit (1931) – featuring original ‘It Girl’ Clara Bow.

The Shocking Blue: Venus (Alex Dias Remix)

The work of Charles Loupot, advertisement for Coty, 1938.

The Burning Hotels: Stuck in the Middle (Baron Von Luxxury Controls Everything Remix)

Found via Deep Glamour

‘These photographs were taken using Kodachrome film by the improbably and wonderfully named Chalmers Butterfield, probably in 1949.’

Click on the images for larger images/zoom features/jump.

DJ Munoz/London Calling: You Drive Me Crazy (Yellow Drill Remix)

Images found via Peter Serafinowicz

Store front design by Harry L. Wyman, 1939. US Patent Office drawing.

Found via Great Inventions, Good Intentions

Advertisement for Benz Automobiles by Adalbert Roth, 1928.

Found via Advertising Art in the Art Deco Style

Illustration by Kiel Bryant.

Comic book lettering artist Todd Klein takes a detailed look at the early Batman logotypes.

Part one here. Part two here.

With later Batman logo analysis here, here and here.

Video for Madonna’s Express Yourself. Production design by Vance Lorenzini, inspired by Metropolis. Directed by David Fincher. From 1989.

Metropolis poster by Pietari Posti and Underware. 6-layered silkscreen print, 2008. Run of 100.

With glow-in-the-dark lettering.

Posters for Metropolis by Maelle De Bernardini. From 2002.

Cinematography for Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927) was inspired by Paul Citroen’s 1923 Metropolis photomontage (above).

And so was Boris Bilinsky’s poster for the film (below).

Commercial artists took some liberties with how they created visual promotion for Metropolis – redrawing or recreating the ‘maschinenmensch’ (machine-man) and the modernist cityscapes.

The most famous of the bunch, the golden Heinz Schulz-Neudamm version (above), set a record in 2005. One of four existing copies sold at auction for $690,000. Highest price paid for a motion picture broadside.

More posters below. And more here.

Metropolis by E. McKnight Kauffer. Gouache on paper, 1926.

Foreshadows Depero’s compositions, such as his view of New York – and his work for Campari.

Deco-styled Fitzgerald editions designed by Coralie Bickford-Smith.

Photograph by Kent Hall.

Taken at the 2007 Gatsby Summer Afternoon, held annually by the Art Deco Society of California.

‘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.

B-movie typography eCards, designed by Will Staehle for TDC. Go here.

And check out Will Staehle’s website here.

Found via Ilene Strizver

The final Lucky store that bore the Raymond Loewy facade was located in Palo Alto.

There was a strong preservation effort for this location. Palo Alto is quite picky about big boxes invading.

Now abandoned, the store saw its last customer in 2005.

Photo by mehallo, taken 1998

Another Metropolis remix (above).

The complete, newly restored Metropolis (1927) will be showing locally at the Crest Theatre in Sacramento, September 11 and 12, 2010.

Found via Alex R. Trujillo

Queen’s Radio Gaga. From 1984.

The video features public domain footage from Fritz Lang’s Metropolis (1927).

Metropolis’ New Tower of Babel; click for larger version/jump

Also in 1984, producer Giorgio Moroder updated Metropolis with a rock score – controversial for some purists. Queen’s Freddy Mercury contributed Love Kills to the soundtrack (video below); though unrelated to the Gaga single.

So far, Moroder’s new wave-esque version (due to music licensing) hasn’t been officially released on DVD. But in comparison to the original (which got a complete restoration just this year), Moroder’s music, color tints and enhanced sound fx result in a totally different, very 1980s film experience.

A few months back, Claudia Chandler Brocato of the Chandler Family Association contacted me about Chandler 42 – my 1994 contribution to the ‘messy typewriter’ font genre.

And they ended up giving me a really nice write up in their quarterly newsletter. Just click the above image to read/download a one page PDF.

Some of the ampersand options available in my Jeanne Moderno fonts.

‘Vintage Ads Reveal Fashions And Trends In Type And Commercial Lettering’

Check out Vintage Ad Browser.

And
Great article about how to typographically mimic these looks at The Font Feed.

Found via The Font Feed

More radioactive products here. And a few here.

I finally made it over to the Depero 50 exhibit at the Italian Cultural Institute in San Francisco. Discovered many of Fortunato Depero’s originals were an interesting mix of ink washes. Above is his view of NYC from 1930. When he finally visited the overgrown metropolis, it wasn’t the Futurist utopia he’d imagined. Also below, the number composition is a sketch for a series of Futurist pillows.

A great exhibition catalog can be had for only 20 bucks – and thanks to the docents for all their help. Show details.

Exhibition ends December 4, 2009.

Composizioni Numeriche, 1927

Campari, 1933

Italia – Guerra, 1916

Plus
Here’s more Depero over at designboom.

Found via Leslie Cabarga

Art Deco-styled locker numbers. Shot these while on a break from Friday Night Typography.

A prototype Killinger und Freund motorcycle, built 1935 in Munich, Germany. Info here. Even more info here.

Found via Craig Maclaine

Giacomo Balla (1871-1958) was one of the original Futurists. Above is his 1916 design for a Futurist handbag. And in 1986, Italian accessories manufacturer Borbonese actually interpreted/built the purse out of seude and bakelite (below).

Both will be on display as part of the exhibition Futurismi Futuristi, which opens December 15th, 2009 in Turin, Italy. Details (translated) here.

Found via ItalianFuturism.org; purse images via sfilate.it

F.T. Marinetti’s Futurist Manifesto as film, by D. Christie
‘An animated/live action interpretation of F.T. Marinetti’s 1909 Futurist Manifesto. Inspired by the artwork and design of Norman Bel Geddes and Raymond Loewy.’

Marcel Duchamp’s Anemic Cinema (1926)
(turn off the sound if you’re a purist)

Walther Ruttmann’s Opus I (1921)

Hans Richter’s Rhythmus 23 (1923)
Info: weirdwildrealm.com/f-hans-richter.html

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator (experimental short film, 1930)
Info: cybermuse.gallery.ca/cybermuse/enthusiast/acquisitions/2000-2001/moholy_text_e.jsp

Moholy Nagy film preview: Lichtspiel Schwarz Weiss Grau (1930)
Titles feature types by Paul Renner (Futura Black) and Herbert Bayer (Universal)

Moholy-Nagy’s Light Space Modulator, recreation
‘a short documentation from the replica of moholy nagy’s light space modulator in Van Abbe Museum in Eindhoven, Holland’

Viking Eggeling’s Symphonie Diagonale (1921-24)
Info: myspace.com/vikingeggeling

Man Ray: Le Retour a la Raison (1923)

Fernand Leger and Man Ray’s Ballet Mécanique (1924)
Info: antheil.org

Hans Richter: Inflation (1928)

Fluxus: Fluxfilm 8 (1966)
Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fluxus

Tony Conrad: Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain (1972)
‘Performance of Ten Years Alive on the Infinite Plain by Tony Conrad, assisted by Mick “Mike” Flower (of Vibracathedral Orchestra), Angharad Davies and Ryoko Kuwajima – at Leeds City Art Gallery, UK on Monday 3rd April 2006. Extract recorded live to camera, though the other 88 minutes were pretty similar to this.’

Harry Everett Smith: Early Abstractions (1946-57)
Info: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_Everett_Smith

Brian Eno and Harold Budd: The Plateaux of First Light
‘Music by Brian Eno H.Budd Album:The Plateaux of Mirror. First Light. This video takes the point of view of a fly flying in cigarette smoke.’

Benny Hill: Avant Garde Cinema