NoRelevance.com » old paper

Alvin Lustig Book Covers (via FaceOut Books)

Art — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 19:46:28 +0000

Thanks to @brandi_duncan for turning me on to FaceOut Books and their inspiring blog, which features among others these wonderful book covers designed by Alvin Lustig. Reminiscent of Alexander Steinweiss’ covers for Columbia records, Lustig exploited the silhouette as design element and hand-drawn scripts to wonderfully tasteful heights. If you’ve read any of the books whose covers he designed for authors as varied as Franz Kafka to Henry James you will probably find that they were equally illustrative from a context standpoint. One can see resemblances to fellow modernist Paul Rand in the geometric and free-form shapes he used as well as his love for color. Check them out and be inspired.

War Posters

Art — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 08:35:39 +0000

From the Boston Public Library, check out these wonderful–if not strangely relevant–propaganda posters from WW2 Allied powers.

War Posters (flickr set)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/…[deletia]

I’ve got a victory garden going, don’t you?

Do You Know What it Means?

Art — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 15:24:37 +0000

Do you? I’m not sure you do, unless of course you start browsing the many family photos in this online memory project. DoYouKnowWhatItMeans.org hopes to avoid the type of catastrophic loss of visual history as which happened with the floodwaters of Katrina. Many photos seem to have survived a hurricane or flood or two, which would not be beyond the realm of possibilities for residents of New Orleans who seem to suffer a major “natural” disaster every generation or so. The snapshots instantly bring me back to my childhood. I have fond memories of “hurricane parties,” where several families on a street would convene to one house with the kids all running around the back yard and the dads setting up a giant cauldron atop a propane stove to boil crawfish, crabs and shrimp. Once the rains and heavy winds began the party would move indoors where the moms played Bourré under hurricane lamps, the men tweaked their transistor radios and the kids pulled out their Nash Roberts hurricane tracking maps waiting for the inevitable eye to come…

Exploring the world of old paper…

Art — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 06:01:30 +0000

This is the tagline for a wonderful site created by Marty Weil entitled simply “Ephemera.” As someone who was bitten by the collecting bug at an early age (first stamps & baseball cards, then eventually everything) I truly enjoyed digging around this well researched and illustrated blog. Each entry is presented with enough background info to give the visually interesting a proper context. Though, “paper” only hints at the content featured, which ranges from booklets & publications to advertising pieces to photos & postcards and more. Oh, and did I mention the vintage dairy patch collection?