Sendai Broadcasting
Designed by Yusaku Kamekura (Japan)

Double 2 (unidentified company)
Designed by Gonzalez Ruiz & Ronald Shakespear (Argentina)

Creative Photography Gallery – Exhibition Two
Designed by ?, 1969

Antiques 3 Inc.
Designed by John & Mary Condon (USA)

Olivetti Typewriters
Designed by Florence Bezrutczyk (USA)

Dioguardi – Contruction Company
Designed by Mimmo Castellano (Italy)

New Years Issue Magazine
Designed by Abram Games (Great Britain)

Jewish Community Centers of Chicago
Designed by Giulio Cittato (USA)

International Congress for Societies of Industrial Design
Designed by Roger Denning (Great Britain)

Kohei Miura New Years Card
Designed by Kohei Miura (Japan)

Kansai Telecasting Corp.
Designed by Yoshio Hayakawa, 1965 (Japan)

WOR-TV
Designed by Mike Shenon & Richard Luppi (USA)
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A shiny new crop of mid-century modern logos above is marked by beautiful numeric figures. I am especially fond of the marks originating in 1960s Japan. Be sure to follow the respective designer name links to learn more and/or see more of their work.

This is the first post in a two-part mini-series on international integer-centric trademarks so be on the lookout  for an additional serving in coming weeks.

These logos are sourced from Trade Marks & Symbols, Volume 2: Symbolical Designs, part of a comprehensive hardback set brimming with thousands of modern logos. The series is edited by notable Japanese graphic designer Yasaburo Kuwayam, published in 1973.

>> More classic logos on AQ-V

[ All images © ]
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Poster advertising Olivetti’s participation in office equipment exhibit (Switzerland)
Designer: Walter Ballmer & Titti Campagnoli
Graphis Posters 1973

Advertisement from inside flap of Graphis Annual 73/74
Designer: Walter Ballmer?

Silkscreen poster for a portable typewriter (Italy)
Designer Robert Pieraccini
Graphis Posters 1973

Ad for Olivetti blue-green portable typewriter, featuring Twiggy
Photographer: Justin de Villeneuve, Art director: Henry Wolf
From an article about Henry Wolf in Graphis 149, 1970

Poster for the small Olivetti Valentine typewriter (Germany)
Designer: Milton Glaser
Graphis Annual 70/71

Advertisement from inside flap of Graphis Annual 70/71
Designer: Walter Ballmer

Poster for the Olivetti Valentine typewriter
Designer: Adrianus Van Der Elst
Graphis Annual 71/72
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[A] preoccupation with design developed into a comprehensive corporate philosophy, which embraced everything from the shape of a space bar to the color scheme for an advertising poster.

—Jonathan Martin, International Directory of Company Histories
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Italian company Olivetti S.p.A. was founded as a typewriter manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti. The enterprise expanded over the last century to produce calculators, computers, printers and other business machines. The Lettera and Valentine typewriters are now treasured vintage pieces to collectors worldwide.

Happily, Olivetti’s innovative aesthetic vision went beyond their product design, reaching into graphic and architectural design. The list of artists and designers affiliated with Olivetti in the 20th century is ridiculously impressive: Giovanni Pintori, Ettore Sottsass, Mario Bellini, Walter Ballmer, to name a scant few.

I’m particularly charmed by “free to be you and me” look of the early 1970s Olivetti print pieces. Providing an enchanting visual narrative, climb on board to this design time machine, to an era all about expanding boundaries.

See more >> Olivetti Advertisements 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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Exquisite new work by award-winning illustrator and designer Wayne Brezinka who has appeared on the pages of AQ-V before, including my summer 2010 interview with Wayne found here.

Wayne always delivers remarkable handcrafted paper collage art and illustration work high on concept, dimension and texture. His dynamic visuals are intriguing, engaging the eye and mind. You can find gallery prints of select art for purchase at Imagekind.

CD package design & illustration for singer/songwriter recording artist Jill Phillips
( see more )
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Almost Hear the Blues
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FAMINE portraits benefiting The Horn of Africa Food Crisis
Available for purchase as gallery prints or notecards
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“Retain and Recruit” full page assignment for Strategic Finance magazine

“Muammar Gaddafi” self-initiated promotional work

[ All work & images © Wayne Brezinka, Brezinka Design ]
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Neue Helvetica

It’s difficult to have a series of typographic posters and not include Helvetica in the mix.
The concept was to show Neue Helvetica as a cure-all for all your typographic challenges.

Historical Popularity

This poster highlights the contrasting style of a historically popular initial capital that is reminiscent of the 16th – 19th Centuries, with that of the 20th Century.

Sensual Scrap

I was working on a project that involved quite a bit of delicate cutting, and the resulting scraps were simply too interesting to discard without documentation. The thin curves of the paper scraps reminded me of a capital script S, so I included a hand-cut 5 inch letter and photgraphed them together — resulting in the main visual for this poster.

Juvenile Detention

This poster was a response to the overabundance of bad graffiti that I see daily around the city. Then in a satirical act of self-defiance, I vandalized my own poster — which seemed oddly appropriate considering the subject matter.

Simply Grotesk

For this piece I wanted to create a visual that was fundamental, beautiful and grotesque (a play on its word pronunciation). Due to a registered trademark, the typeface is not directly named.

American Typewriter

For this poster, I combined images of my 1960s manual typewriter with the typefaceAmerican Typewriter. Independent of each other, the original typewriter letterforms and American Typewriter have similarities, but the two would never be confused for each other. However, once American Typewriter was paired with the physical typewriter for the poster final, they integrated almost seamlessly.

Capline

This poster brings attention to the typographic term capline, which refers to an imaginary horizontal line that marks the height of capital letters. Note: 20 adult style beverages aided in the concepting and execution of this piece.

[ All work & images © Tom Davie, studiotwentysix2 ]
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Above is a sampling of the rich annual crop of conceptually driven typographic posters by artist, design educator and award-winning graphic designer Tom Davie. See more of this collection here. These printed beauties are available for purchase at Society6.
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How 2011 sped past so quickly is a mystery; it truly makes one dizzy. So here we find ourselves venturing into 2012 ready or not. Admit it, a fresh new year spread out before us on the calendar always holds some mandatory level of excitement—an opportunity to accomplish things that fell off the radar the prior year, a shiny new window of 365 days without any smears or smudges yet. I welcome that, you?

The past year has been another rewarding one at AQ-V. Thank you always and again for your readership. My fabulous contributor Sandi Vincent continues to make this place extra fantastic, I can’t thank her enough.

I decided to repeat what I did last year around this time and create a year-end roundup of popular blog features. Below you will find images and linkage to the fifteen most popular Aqua-Velvet posts of 2011 as quantified by visitors and page views. There are plenty of my personal favorites in the set.

An extraordinary 2012 to you in the days to come. I look forward to your company and welcome your feedback.

Cheers!
–Amy

[ All images © ]

Top 15

01. Classic Logos

Most popular in the 2011 series:
Animal Menagerie Pt 1 & Pt 2 + Alphabet Soup + Yusaku Kamera + Bird Trademarks

02. Photo Essay – MIT Design Class, 1964

03. Benjamin Bowden – Futuristic Spacelander Bicycle

04. Photo Essay – Atomic Bomb Tests, 1950s

05. A.M. Cassandre – Advertising Posters, 1937

06. Structures of Warped Surfaces – Eduardo F. Catalano, 1960

07. Illustrated Japanese Posters, 1960s – Part 2

08. Mid-Century Modern Pharmaceuticals – Europe, 1960s

09. Superstudio Architectural Group – MoMA Exhibit, 1972

10. NASA Archives

11. Modern + Popular Photography, 1958/59

12. Photo Essay – Antique Mug Shots, Leavenworth

13. Mid-Century Album Covers – Volume 14

14. Interview » Lynn Lennon, Fantasy Self Portrait Series, 1970s

15. Late Summer Holiday – Travel Posters, 1950s/60s

[ All images © ]
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To Unite Our Strength, 1980

UNDRO (United Nations Disaster Relief  Organization) Against Disaster, 1978

Eliminate Racial Discrimination, 1971?

To Maintain Peace and Security, 1964 or 1972

UN Logo Wreath Flag

Human Rights, 1957

Respect for Human Rights

United Nations, 1964

Second Disarmament Decade, 1993

ITU 1865–1965: From Semaphore to Satellite

[ All images © ]

>> United Nations Postage Stamps Part 1 + Part 2 + Part 3
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Window display for ladies’ hosiery
One of a series of abstract designs, newspaper on the table is ‘The Look’
Design by Ernst Berger
Gebrauchsgraphik No. 11 1955

Fashion display for the Jelmoli department store, Zurich
Metal sculpture continues the theme in the background
Painting and sheet-metal sculpture by J.H. Engesser, Design by Hans Erhardt
Graphis 94 1961

City of Cologne traffic advertising program
Design by Rolf Lederbogen
Gebrauchsgraphik No. 10 1960

Window display for Hermes, Paris
Figure of Don Quixote dressed in black leather, based on a picture by Salvador Dali
Design by Annie Beaumel
Graphis 94 1961

Christmas window for the Design Centre, London
Design by George Him
Graphis 94 1961

Window display for the Wako department store, Tokyo (composite + detail)
Theme is ‘Summer’, blue and pink silk-screened panels against a silver background
Design by Kenji Itoh
Graphis 94, 1961

Window display for Hermes, Paris
For leather coats and luggage, using decorative metal spirals
Design by Annie Beaumel
Graphis 94 1961

Window display for Hermes, Paris
Design by Annie Beaumel
Gebrauchsgraphik No. 10 1961

Christmas window display for the department store De Bijendorf, Rotterdam
Design by W. Smits
Graphis 94, 1961

City of Cologne traffic advertising program
Design by Herbert Lemkes
Gebrauchsgraphik No. 10 1960

[ All images © ]
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Once upon a time, I worked in a bookstore and was fortunate enough to have a manager indulgent enough to put me in charge of staging the window displays. While others toiled behind the cash registers and restocked shelves, lucky me alighted to art supply stores and fabric emporiums in search of the proper trappings to accent our stock. Ah memories.

A visit to my vintage magazine collection reminds me that to tell an engaging story from behind the glass requires a rare combination of talents. I bow to those extraordinary mid-century artist/designer/storytellers who created the worlds within a window shared here.

>> Mid-Century Shop Windows 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 and is a board member of a local nonprofit preservation group, the Mid-Century Modern League. 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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Hammer and Sickle, 1980s

Tyumen Gas and Oil, 1980s

The Russian name of Tyumen city, also known as the “Oil and Gas capital” of USSR (now Russia).

High cultures to every field (agriculture), 1980s

We will complete the 5 year plan in advance!

“5 year plan” was an economical planning strategy used in the USSR.

Let there be peace on the earth!

Metal must be used in a sustainable way!
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Another installment of delicious Soviet propaganda ephemera I purchased from the Soviet Shop (formally Soviet Reality), hosted by Michail Sapoval in Lithuania. As always I look forward to expanding my collection further. Follow the shop link to see many more works including classic red and stern to eerily upbeat posters similar to examples above. In either case, it appears the Soviets were notably fond of exclamation marks. Allegiance and conformity with enthusiasm were to be encouraged obviously.

>> Soviet USSR Propaganda Posters – Part 1
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Enoch Light… Big Band Bossa Nova: The New Beat from Brazil / Command Records, 1962
Cover design by Charles E. Murphy

Provocative Percussion Vol. 3 / Command Records, 1961
Cover design by Josef Albers, Art direction by Charles E. Murphy

Vibrations: Enoch Light & The Light Brigade / Command Records, 1962
Cover design by Chermayeff & Geismar Associates, Art direction by Charles E. Murphy

Encores for Orchestra / Vanguard Records

Persuasive Percussion Vol. 3 / Command Records, 1960
Cover design by Josef Albers

John Pozdro Third Symphony – Spencer Norton Partita / Composers Recordings, 1960
Cover design by John O’Neil

Provocative Percussion Vol. 4 / Command Records, 1962
Cover design by Charles E. Murphy
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>> See previous album cover features here + flickr

[ All work & images © ]
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Vision 65

Kalamazoo and How it Grew!
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The Brain – Poster design, c. 1960 / Client: Upjohn

The Pantheon Story of Mathematics for Young People – Cover design

The Cell Monograph – Journal cover design / Client: Fortune
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Above is striking imagery by 20th century designer Will Burtin (1908–1972). Burtin, a German emigré to the US, is best known for his pioneering work in information design and specifically his important contributions in making scientific and technological knowledge more accessible to the masses. As designers we owe him a great deal.

Upon his arrival to the United States, Mr. Burtin became art director at Fortune magazine, later launching his own firm in New York in 1949. Clients included Union Carbide, Eastman Kodak, the Smithsonian Institution, and Upjohn Pharmaceuticals. (RIT)

See more samples of  Burtin’s work at RIT Graphic Design Archive. Plus learn more about Mr. Burtin in the 2007 book by R. Roger Remington and Robert Fripp, Design and Science: The Life and Work of Will Burtin and an essay by Lorraine Wild on Design Observer published in 2009 under a similar title.

[ All images ©, via RIT Graphic Design Archive ]
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