Dear Readers:

As alluded to in my prior post I have decided to retire the AQ-V blog; this decision being made following long consideration. After finding myself between a rock and a hard place last year pressed for time by project load, ongoing major house construction and a family medical crisis I knew in 2013 I would need to either take another lengthy hiatus or step away altogether. Priorities change, the internet changes. So here at the four year anniversary mark it seems timely to wind things down.

The past four years have been a terrific run and a super learning experience. I am very grateful for your readership, interest, conversation and submissions. The site will remain up with the archives and corresponding links intact into the future. AQ-V was a shop and a brand before it became a design inspiration blog and at some point it will return to such—a creative sub-studio offering up modernist goods designed by me and my husband with a related blog, a mix of product updates and retro inspiration. But this will not happen anytime soon due to other commitments. And even then under a new site format a link to the archives will remain.

Although this site will go dormant for a season or two I will remain active online elsewhere—I will continue to share vintage modern design routinely on the AQ-V fan page plus Flickr; tweet here and there; and maybe finally find time to explore and update Pinterest instead of being a hiccup. I am looking forward to having more time to appreciate others’ content.

Thank you again. And a giant thank you to Sandi Vincent for her incredible contributions to this site the past three years. I know you will agree how much she has enriched AQ-V.

I hope to see you guys around.

–Amy
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Septet – The New Sound of Art Van Damme / Columbia Records, 1964
Cover photo by Fred Schnell, Globe

Licia Albanese in Highlights from Puccini’s Madame Butterfly / RCA Victor, 1954

Tchaikovsky Symphony No. 5 / Decca Records, 1951
Cover art by Erik Nitsche

Erroll Garner / Columbia Records, 1953

Ellis in Wonderland / Columbia Records, 1956
Cover photo by Phil Stern

Luther College Choir in Europe / RCA Victor, 1967

Kostelanetz – Carmen / Columbia Records, 1955
Photo (left) by Krieger
Photo (right) from the book, ‘La Fiesta Brave,’ The Art of the Bull Ring, Barnaby Conrad

Frank Rosolino – I Play Trombone / Bethlehem Records, 1956
Leichman & Seide

Cuttin’ The Boogie: Piano Blues and Boogie Woogie, 1926–1941 / New World Records, 1977
Cover art by Alexander Calder, ‘Horizontal Spines’; sheet metal, wire and rods, sheet aluminum
Cover design by Elaine Sherer Cox

Rodgers & Hart – Percussion & Strings / Time Records, 1960
Cover design by Burt Goldblatt
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A mix of bold graphic, typographic and/or photographic album covers from the 1950s and 1960s; well, with the exception of one 1970s cover I slipped in the set.

>> See previous album cover features here + flickr

[ All work & images © ]
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Editor’s note:
This marks the final post of this nature on AQ-V as I have decided to wrap up this enjoyable four year long chapter of blogging and move toward other projects. This decision comes after much consideration. I will be making a formal announcement sometime next week.

Thank you for a great run!
–Amy
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Winning mark by Takeshi Otaka

Mark initially selected as winner, by Isao Nishijima

by Keijo Ito

by Tadashi Ohashi

by Yusaku Kamekura

by Tetsuo Katayama

by Koji Kato

by Ikko Tanaka

by Kazumasa Nagai

by Masayoshi Nakajo

by Tomokazu Nishiwaki

by Yoshio Hayakawa

by Toshio Fukuda

by Iwao Hosoya

by Ryuichi Yamashiro

by GK Industrial Design Office

by KAK
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Featured above is a heft of seventeen bold graphic logo marks by various and significant Japanese designers. They represent entries in the Osaka Expo ’70 competition and are sourced from Trade Marks & Symbols, Volume 2: Symbolical Designs, part of a comprehensive hardback set featuring thousands of modern logos. The series is edited by notable Japanese graphic designer Yasaburo Kuwayama, published in 1973.

The marks above appear in the exact order as they do in the book with the winning mark by Takeshi Otaka in the lead. (This logo was previously published in Sandi’s Logo Collection, 1969 post plus my Expo ’70 – Osaka, Japan post here on AQ-V.) And the initial winning mark by Isao Nishijima following.

>> More classic logos on AQ-V

–Amy

[ All images © ]
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Herman Hesse: Der Steppenwolf
Published by DTV, 1968, © 1955 Herman Hesse
Cover by Celestino Piatti
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Deutsche Lyrik Gedichte seit 1945 (German lyric poetry since 1945)
Published by DTV, 1968, © 1961 Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt GmbH, Stuttgart
Cover by Celestino Piatti

Gerhart Hauptmann: Der Biberpelz (The Beaver Coat)
Published by eine Propyläen Textausgabe, 1969, © 1959 Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt/M – Berlin
Cover by Hermann Rastorfer
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Gerhart Hauptmann: Rose Bernd
Published by eine Propyläen Textausgabe, 1968, © 1959 Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt/M – Berlin
Cover by Hermann Rastorfer

In Sachen Böll Ansichten und Einsichten (Views and Insights on Heinrich Böll)
Edited by Marcel Reich-Ranicki
Published by DTV, 1972, © 1968 Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln – Berlin
Cover by Celestino Piatti
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Bertolt Brecht: Frühe Stücke – Baall. Trommeln in der Nacht. Im Dickicht der Städte
(Bertolt Brecht: Early Pieces – Baall, Drums in the Night, In the Jungle of Cities)
Published by DTV, 1967, © 1953 Suhrkamp Verlag, Berlin
Cover by Celestino Piatti

Walter M. Diggelmann: Das Verhör Des Harry Wind (The Interrogation of Harry Wind)
Published by Rororo Tashenbuch Ausgabe, 1966, © 1962 Benziger Verlag
Cover by Wilfried Blecher
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Thomas Mann: Buddenbrooks
Published by Fischer Bücherei, 1970, © 1922 S. Fischer Verlag, Berlin

Gerhart Hauptmann: Die Weber (The Weavers)
Edited by H. Schwab–Felisch
Published by Ullstein Bücher, 1971, © 1959/63 Verlag Ullstein GmbH, Frankfurt/M – Berlin – Wien
Cover by Wolfgang Dohmen
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Max Frisch: Biedermann und die Brandstifter (The Fire Raisers),
Ein Lehrstück ohne Lehre Mit einem Nachspiel
Editors: Paul Kurt Ackermann, Boston University & William G. Moulton, Princeton University
Published by Houghton Mifflin Co., © 1958 Suhrkamp Verlag, © 1963 Paul Kurt Ackermann
Illustrated by Eric von Schmidt

Herman Hesse: Narziβ und Goldmund (Narcissus and Goldmund)
Published by Fischer Bücherei, 1970, © 1957 Hermann Hesse, Montagnola
Cover by Kurt Wirth
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Thomas Mann: Bekenntnisse des Hochstaplers Felix Krull (Confessions of Felix Krull)
Published by Fischer Bücherei, 1965, © 1954 Thomas Mann
Cover by Kurt Wirth

Erich Kästner: Fabian
Published by Ullstein Buch, 1969, © Atrium Verlag A,G. Zürich
Cover by Hermann Rastorfer
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Franz Kafka: Der Prozeβ (The Trial)
Published by Fischer Bücherei, 1960, © 1935 Schocken Verlag, Berlin
Cover design from a drawing by Kafka

[ All work & images © ]
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As promised, here is the bonanza of vintage German paperbacks I recently came upon at a thrift store in my home town. Most of these notable plays and literary classics were published in the mid and late 1960s with a few being published in the early 1970s. These covers represent work by Celestino Piatti (1922–2007), Hermann Rastorfer (1930–2009), Kurt Wirth (1917–1996), Wilfried Blecher, Eric von Schmidt, Wolfgang Dohmen and a drawing by novelist Kafka (1883–1924) himself.

Of note, as four of the above covers are works by Swiss artist/designer Celestino Piatti for German publisher DTV…

In 1961 Piatti became the designer for the newly-founded Deutscher Taschenbuch Verlag (DTV) of Munich. As well as their cover designs, Piatti was responsible for the company’s typography, signets, letterheads, advertisements and posters, giving the DTV catalogue a uniform identity which combined the International Typographic Style with quirky illustration. His distinctive covers used the sans-serif Akzidenz-Grotesk typeface in black against a white background. From 1961, beginning with Heinrich Böll’s Irisches Tagebuch, to 1991, he designed almost all of DTV’s publications, a total of more than 6,300 titles.

In 1987, the DTV produced a retrospective book about Piatti, entitled Celestino Piatti, Meister des graphischen Sinnbilds.

–Wikipedia

See an additional terrifically illustrated Piatti cover in my previous vintage German book cover post here plus more book covers on AQ-V here.

–Amy
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Air Tunnels

An air tunnel is sculpture. An air tunnel is environment. An air tunnel is experience. Because of these ambiguities, an air tunnel can be a rich art resource for the teacher.

From the outside, an air tunnel, with the sun glinting off its glistening contours and the surroundings mirrored in its rounded surfaces, is an impressive and compelling sculptural form. Inside it is a magical world, always refreshingly clean and more than often cool; what is outside, even in the meanest neighborhood, is experienced as pleasantly distorted color shapes so that reality seems a million miles away. This magical feeling of unreality is heightened by the fact that exterior sounds are muffled and that light is softer, milky, diffuse, different from what we ordinarily experience.

The Artist Shapes as the Child Shapes
Francisco Sobrino, Structure Permutationelle E.S.1, 1970
Stainless steel, 20″ x 20″ x 20″

Building Big with Cardboard

Working with modules of their own devising, which can be stacked and restacked, ordered and reordered, students can create designs in which the only mistakes are architectural ones. Once the basic unit is established, the students will perceive a certain design logic that not only articulates form but ensures structural validity.

[…]

Because the elements are so easy to manipulate, students are seldom satisfied with mundane solutions but respond to the challenge of creating exciting forms that require precise positioning of each unit within the whole.

Working Big Outdoors

Here we see a straight-line design problem typically tackled in the classroom by individual students working on their own with rulers, manila paper, and crayons or India ink blown up to such dimensions that a team of youngsters is needed to solve the same space-division problem. They do not use classroom-size supplies but large-scale materials that, although simple in themselves, invite exciting and dramatic designs and allow maximum freedom of invention. Working with long strips of white dressmakers’ buckram, the team here lays out a basic design.

Building Big with Cardboard and Light, Working Walls

Light determines sculptural form. We cannot appreciate or build sculpture without understanding the role light plays in the plastic arts.

[…]

The modular possibilities of cardboard boxes lend themselves as readily to relief sculpture as to sculpture in the round. In some respects the student working in relief with boxes can be freer, as there are no architectural restrictions. He is confronted with a design problem more than with a structural one.

Experiencing Real Space

No desk-top approach will engender the excitement about space or yield more personalized knowledge about it as an art element than building a cardboard maze, for example, and exploring its restricting length, or discovering the spatial euphoria of a plastic bubble you have helped construct yourself.

Air Cushions

So far we have concentrated most of our teaching energies into involving the child in such physical areas of art as color and two-dimensional space. We have done little to awaken him to the experience of real space. We have directed our attentions toward involving him in art process and art appreciation without at the same time creating situations in which he could experience spatial sensation and realize his own body as an instrument of creative expression.

Air cushions allow us to work toward both of these ends by providing a physical environment with which the child can realize his own physicality and experience himself as a dimension of the real-space environment.

Cutouts

A Skilsaw plus some oversized sheets of two-ply cardboard suggest any number of big and exciting sculptural projects for junior- and senior-high-school students. Here Danny Dobkin, an eighth-grade student at the Collegiate School in New York City works […] with a Skilsaw and three sheets of cardboard to construct a life-size figure.

Cutouts

Sawed-off cardboard has an exact quality that lends itself to multiple sculpture. The sides of both units of the sculpture shown here were cut with a Skilsaw from the four sides of a discarded cardboard carton. The edges are strips of corrugated cardboard glued and pinned into place. Everything fits so beautifully that from any angle the sculpture has all the precision of a similar piece cut from steel or acrylic.

[…]

Even though the face of one column appears black while the other appears gray, in reality the cardboard was untouched. Because the columns are a few inches apart, it is possible to leave one unit in deep shadow while the other is highlighted.

Cutouts

Right image: Four sheets of cardboard were used to emphasize the sinuous nature of the design. Lights were placed behind it and angled so that they would reflect off the many edges of the sculpture to point up its linear quality and reiterate its complexities.

Left image: The same scuplture takes on an entirely different character when a strip of corrugated cardboard is glued and pinned in place to hide its edges. Kleenex and a 50-percent solution of Elmer’s Glue scumbled on its surfaces gives it a heavy, solid feeling. A metallic spray increases the illusion of massive weight by suggesting that it is in fact metal.

Children and Artists Work Big Together
Eric Reische, Untitled, 1971
Marble, 13½’ x 7′ x 12½’

More often than not, large-scale art projects cannot be accomplished by a single artist working on his own. If he wishes to achieve anything that exceeds a normal scale, he must plan on working as a member of a team. It is not unusual for such projects to involve a whole community. Here we see school children of Randolph, Vermont working alongside artists to produce sculpture that will become part of the community environment. While they are working in a traditional sculptor’s material, marble, they are involved in the same basic experiences that children working big in the classroom enjoy.

[ All images & text excerpts © ]
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A recent book find, above is a taste of the gorgeous black and white photography and concepts from the 1975 educators’ instruction book by John Lidstone and Clarence Bunch entitled, Working Big: A Teachers’ Guide to Environmental Sculpture. Photography and design by the authors. At the time of the 1975 publication both Lidstone and Bunch were art educators at Queens College, New York.

From the back cover:

(Lidstone and Bunch) introduce the teacher to practical methods, based on successful programs in elementary and secondary schools, of implementing large-scale art activities. These make art a reality rather than a desk-top exercise and intensify students’ awareness of the physical world from which the elements of art are derived.

–Amy
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Slater dog reclines poolside.

Abby Slater, 7, plays chess with friend Paul John, 9, at breakfast table near kitchen counter. Kitchen, breakfast area and main living-dining area beyond can be closed to each other or left open to sun which flows through glass doors.

Aerial view shows connecting pavilions: master bedroom pavilion in foreground; main living pavilion in center; service pavilion in rear.

Family and friends dine in lofty main pavilion. To the left is a smaller breakfast area opening to the kitchen counter beyond.

Master bedroom in the sleeping pavilion. Elaine and Jim Slater sit on their private deck outside bedroom. Floor and celing boards form hexagonal patterns and old-fashioned ceiling fan draws in breezes.

[ Images via LIFE photo archives / ©LIFE ]
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Warm 1960s photography of the modern indoor/outdoor Slater home in Boca Raton, Florida. This photo collection was shot by veteran LIFE magazine photographer Michael Rougier for the ‘Ideas in Houses’ section of the February 11, 1966 issue of LIFE. This ‘honeycomb of covered hexagons’ vacation residence was designed by architect Paul Robin John. ‘To give the family privacy and take in the best view, (John) placed the house on the diagonal of the narrow waterfront footage. This way the house rambles across the property without seeming cramped.’

The Slater vacation home in Boca Raton, Fla. is a cluster of airy pavilions around a big swimming pool. When they want company, the Slaters find it at the pool. When they want privacy, they disappear into the labyrinth of patios or one of the six-sided pavilions. No matter where they are, they still get the feeling of the Florida breeze and landscape. From the inside, through the big doors of the house, they are open to the tropical gardens. From the outside, they can look into the pleasing shapes of the cypress-paneled house and right through to the palm trees beyond. From almost anywhere they can watch the passing traffic on the Intracoastal Waterway which runs by the house.

[…]

Inside the sequence of six-sided pavilions it is almost impossible to go in a straight line from one room to another. Slants and zigzags give an illusion of distances greater than they really are and often disorient guests. But they please the Slaters and fulfil the practical purposes of separating areas and people.

Read more > Pavilions by the Water + Living in the Blueprint
( LIFE, February 11, 1966 )

–Amy
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Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth
by R. Buckminster Fuller / Pocket Book Edition, 1970 & 1974
Originally published by Southern Illinois University Press, 1969
Cover art by Gomez

No More Secondhand God (and Other Writings)
by R. Buckminster Fuller / Anchor Books Edition, 1971
Originally published by Southern Illinois University Press, 1963
Cover design by Sydney Butchkes, Cover photograph by Barry Sonnenfeld

Ideas and Integrities: A Spontaneous Autobiographical Disclosure
by Buckminster Fuller, edited by Robert W. Marks / Collier Books, 1974
Originally published by Prentice-Hall, © 1963 by Richard Buckminster Fuller

Utopia or Oblivion: The Prospects for Humanity
by Buckminster Fuller / Bantam Books, 1972
© 1969 by Buckminster Fuller

Buckminster Fuller: At Home in the Universe
by Alden Hatch / Delta Books, 1976
© 1974 by Alden Hatch

I Seem to be a Verb (interior spread)
by R. Buckminster Fuller with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore (graphic designer)
Bantam Books, 1970

My objective has been humanity’s comprehensive welfare in the universe, I could have ended up with a pair of flying slippers.

I Seem to be a Verb (interior spread)
by R. Buckminster Fuller with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore (graphic designer)
Bantam Books, 1970

The intellectual integrity and infinite order of the universe obviously are vastly greater than man. Man is an invention within it. What one did about this understanding would have to be through design. I decided I must not be a persuader, but a doer.

I Seem to be a Verb
by R. Buckminster Fuller with Jerome Agel and Quentin Fiore (graphic designer)
Bantam Books, 1970

[ All work & images © ]
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Last year after getting married my husband and I set out to pare down and jointly reorganize our newly cohabitating book collection. In the process I came across my husband’s small arsenal of somewhat tattered Bucky Fuller (1895–1983) books, a sampling is seen above. These are books authored, co-authored or written about the legendary futurist thinker, engineer, scientist, architect and inventor who has been referred to as ‘a visionary, a prophet, a genius, and a crackpot.’ (Buckminster Fuller: At Home in the Universe, 1974). My husband was fortunate to hear Mr. Fuller speak at the University of Houston a number of years ago. He was then up in years and still going strong.

Discover more Bucky on AQ-V:
–Photo essay, LIFE magazine
–Dymaxion House

Also:
–Buckminster Fuller Institute (BFI)
(Their website is currently down but hopefully will be back up soon.)

Additional editor’s note:
While typing this I am holed up in my shared office with my husband listening to the loud bang, bang, bang of our bedroom being demoed not far away. It will be an interesting 2-3 weeks of messy construction and other projects which may likely interfere with the blogging schedule into next month. I keep hoping things will return to a steady normal but that won’t be quite soon enough.

–Amy
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Control systems

The pyramidal cells of the cerebral cortex are among the largest cells in the brain, but are still invisible to the naked eye. Under the microscope they show an orderly arrangement, which is probably a reflection of their function in the processing of information.

Reproduction

Crystals of the sex hormone estrogen photographed with polarized light. Estrogen is primarily involved in female fertility, but small amounts are also secreted by the male, for it is the balance between the male and female hormones which determines sexuality.

The senses

The eye in highly magnified cross section, is the organ of sight. Each eye receives slightly different supplementary images which, when combined by the brain, produce a three-dimensional perception of the world around us.

Energy for the machine

Food materials, the source of body energy, can only be used if they are absorbed into the bloodstream. This mainly occurs through the walls of the small intestine. To aid this uptake, the intestinal wall, magnified about one hundred and fifty times, is highly folded to create a greater area for absorption.

The brain

Possibly the cells in the body most sensitive to oxygen deprivation, brain cells cannot survive for more than a few minutes without freshly oxygenated blood. Twice life-size, is a resin cast of the blood vessels that supply the brain with vital nutrients.

Evolution of man

Ridge patterns on a human thumb, seen here magnified more than one hundred and fifty times, are a universal attribute of mankind, but at the same time testify to the uniqueness of the individual, for no two people bear patterns that are exactly the same.

Framework of the body

The rigid elements of the body’s framework are the bones, which are composed of cylindrical units. In the illustration the bone has been cut across, photographed in polarized light and magnified more than two hundred and fifty times, so that the active bone-forming cells are seen as dark, circular areas.

Defenses of the body

The bacteria Bacillus proteus, shown here ten thousand times life-size, infects the human urinary tract and is among the many microorganisms which attack our bodies.

The intellect

The acquisition of symbolic language has been a major factor in man’s development of rational thought. The extent of subtle phonetic combinations, as shown by the voiceprint, ensures a wide variety of words to communicate a vast range of ideas.

[ All content © 1976 by Mitchell Beazley Publishers, London ]
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I have been out of town helping family with medical needs but still had hoped to get this blog post up last week. Too many demands and too many plates to keep spinning prevented that unfortunately. While away I did stumble across some great science imagery such as you see above, more to share down the road. Above are elegant, minimal chapter title spreads from the book ‘Atlas of the Human Body’; the original content from 1976 was published under the name ‘Atlas of the Body and Mind’. My 1980 copy was printed under the revised name.

–Amy
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El Tropicano Hotel
Exterior mosaic tile facade & signage

El Tropicano Hotel
Biomorphic shaped planter in the lobby

Abandoned church

Abandoned church

Dixie Form & Steel Company, 1963
Architectural firm: Marmon Mok (link to original 1960s photographs)

Originally built as the headquarters for the Dixie Form & Steel Company, this building has had multiple owners and tenants over the years. It served as the NCOA (Non Commissioned Officers Association) headquarters from the 1970s until 2009. It is currently owned and occupied by a non-profit religious organization.

Dixie Form & Steel Company, 1963
Architectural firm: Marmon Mok (link to original 1960s photographs)

Tower of the Americas – HemisFair ’68
Architects: O’Neil Ford, Boone Powell, Chris Carson

Office building

Alamo Heights Junior School, 1959

Office building

Office building

U.S. Pavilion’s Confluence Theater – HemisFair ’68
Architectural firm: Marmon Mok (link to original 1960s photographs)

Designed to be a permanent structure to remain in use after the 1968 world’s fair, it currently functions as a federal courthouse, specifically the John H. Woods United States Courthouse.

U.S. Pavilion’s Confluence Theater – HemisFair ’68
Architectural firm: Marmon Mok (link to original 1960s photographs)

Elmwood Baptist Church, 1963
Architectural firm: Charles L. Landers Associates

Elmwood Baptist Church, 1963
Architectural firm: Charles L. Landers Associates

Wedgwood highrise apartments

Abilene Civic Center, c. 1960s

Howard Early Childhood Center, 1956

Cooper High School, 1960

Cooper High School, 1960

Dugan Oil Company, c. 1950s
Now occupied by a county taxing authority

Shotwell Stadium, c. 1960s

[ All images © Amy Collier ]
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A fresh photo collection of mid-century modern architecture observed within my neck of the woods. These structures can be described as brilliant and unique or possibly ubiquitous and understated. No matter I hope you will see why each of these caught my eye… the forms, materials, graphic qualities; these things prick my attention.

See the first installment of regional MCM architecture on AQ-V plus a host more imagery in larger format on flickr. The latter locale I will continue to update from here on out.

–Amy
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Ivan Brissenden & Partners Ltd. / Designed by Ivan Brissenden
Graphic Design Britain 70

Pininfarina / Designed by Stephen Smith
Graphic Design Britain 70

Uroda – Cosmetics company / Designed by Karol Sliwka (Poland)
Graphis Annual 70/71

Tissages Normands Réunis – Textile group / Designed by Adrian Frutiger (France)
Graphis Annual 70/71

Rhône-Poulenc Group / Designed by Jean Fortin (France)
Graphis Annual 71/72

Mondi Valley – Paper maker / Designed by John Rieben (South Africa)
Graphis Annual 72/73

Mead Fluid Dynamics / Designed by Raymond Rotheroe (USA)
Graphis Annual 72/73

Gaster Supermarket / Designed by Claude-Henri Saunier (France)
Graphis Annual 71/72

Tomco Plastic, Inc. – Injection molding / Designed by John Noneman (USA)
Graphis Annual 73/74

Meridian Building Group Ltd. / Designed by Ian Valentine (Canada)
Graphis Annual 71/72

Planned Parenthood of Toronto / Designed by Richard Janis (Canada)
Graphis Annual 73/74

Fishing company / Designed by Claude Dieterich (Peru)
Graphis Annual 72/73
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>> See additional Mid-Century Modern logos in my flickr set
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Sandi Vincent grew up in the bay area of California surrounded by mid-century modern architecture and other influences responsible for her affinity for the period and its pop style, including her early exposure to The Monkees, The Avengers and Gerald McBoing-Boing. Sandi now resides in Portland. In her day job at a community foundation, she sports the web/social media/print materials coordinator title.

Follow Sandi on Twitter > @SandiV
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