Vintage Poster and Print Blog

Vintage typography & lettering, part I - books, boards, posters

Good font is very important (often the most important) element of a good poster so - since we love both of these things - we prepared short set of vintage lettering inspirations.

First - Agence Eureka. This rich Flickr collection contains scans of many books and publications related to typography and lettering. A few of them below:

Posted: Apr 22, 2015 | Tagged: book, calligraphy, font, graphic design, illustration, lettering, print, ruemarcellin, script, typography

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Vintage French Illustrations Take Motion and Come Alive!

We decided to choose two illustrations from Rue Marcellin's collection and let them live their life for a moment. ;) Two decades of difference, two various moods, both - illustrative, joyful and a bit nostalgic.

First - indoor entertainment at the famous Maxim's de Paris, men's conversations, glasses in hands and top hats on heads: Maxim's 1902 Original Print

And second one - outdoor adventure, female trip, wind in the sails and a pinch of elegance : La Vie Parisienne - Un Mousse d'Occasion - circa 1920 Original Magazine Print

Which one is your favorite?

Posted: Apr 15, 2015 | Tagged: animation, cover, graphic design, illustration, magazine, print, ruemarcellin

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Time for reading - Against All Odds: Polish Graphic Design 1919–1949

(...) This 408 page volume is an overflowing treasure-trove of graphic work prior to the 50s–60s golden age of postwar Polish posters. - Steven Heller

Rypson examines the different faces of Modernism in Poland from the revival of the nation at the end of the First World War to the imposition of Stalinism in the late 1940s. He is an expert guide, supplying fast-paced narratives about the commercial, state and political clients for whom graphic designers worked. (...) - David Crowley, "Eye"

Design junkies need to buy this sucker immediately. - Will Schofield, 50watts.com

Posted: Apr 08, 2015 | Tagged: advertising, book, graphic design, illustration, posters, publication, war

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Pictures in Motion - A look at Old Animation Tools and Optical Toys

For contemporary people pictures in motion are something extremely ordinary. Daily doses of ads on TV and the Internet, 3D movies, mobile presentations and animations make us accustomed to the fact that we live in a world full of motion pictures. Often we don't even have enough time to stop and think of how it all looked before mankind had the TV, cinema or mobile devices.

The world of motion picture has a very rich history, full of optical illusions, studies of visual perception and surprises. At the end of the XIX century most pre-film animation devices used a sequence of pictures showing progressive phases of motion. This was quite similar to the film reel method which is still well known to this day, many years after its invention. The main difference being that the pictures in the early days were hand-painted and - well, let's be honest - the story was much shorter and simpler than that of movies today. The method can be clearly seen on the zoopraxiscope (below). This kind of divices was created by photographer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879:

Posted: Apr 01, 2015 | Tagged: animation, collection, illustration, picture

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