I love retro advertising art.
Some of the best American advertising was slightly before my time.
But thanks to Plan59—you can enjoy it now!
Not only do they license hi-res versions of their collection for you ad agency folks…
But they also sell some fantastic Giclee prints for all you art collectors.
Bask in the glow!
O.K.—These were birthed before my heyday and fascination with 45's but they were too cool not to post.
One gets the impression that as the LP grew in popularity, the artwork for the 45 sleeves lessened. By the time I started collecting 45's, these photo sleeves were history.
Some of these would have definitely caught your attention on the rack in their day!
These will take you on the wayback machine!
I remember my mom taking me to Zody’s—our local department store in Santa Ana, CA—where I would spend my pitiful allowance on 45’s. I think they were about .79 cents each.
An early purchase that comes to mind is “Spill The Wine” by Eric Burdon & War.
I remember setting the family Telefunken on repeat and playing that tune over and over until my mother’s ears screamed for mercy.
I think I was in second grade.
Great memories.
If you like these…check out the motherlode here.
Look Ma! No Hands!
I saw this technology when I was touring Japan in the late 80's.
High-Tech toilets have finally made their way to American shores.
To cut to the chase...this gizmo washes you off—hands free.
This is brilliantly executed web advertising.
You must click here...it's worth a few minutes of your time.
You will both laugh and marvel at the design of both the product and the marketing campaign.
Now, wipe that grin off your face!
It was my birthday yesterday.
Check out what my kids got me.
The sound system is killer!
But parking garages are tough...
OK—so I jest...more van love here.
How’d they get Dude in there?
When I was kid, I did always look for the little guys hiding inside the radio.
I heard Brian Eno bought 8 of these. They emit loops of ambient music. I confess that I love groovy little electronic gadgets—especially those so spartan and retro. I love this concept and tip my hat to FM3 for both ingenuity and execution. I’ll probably buy one though it seems a bit sparse content-wise (yeah…I know—that’s the idea). Was a bit under whelmed with the ambient loops that come with it—which can also be downloaded free. I did like loop #1 and played it all morning until I found myself drooling on my carpet in a fetal position. I also dug loop #9 which is the most musical of the lot and even inspired me to jam a bit over it on my trusty Boeing nylon-string. What? You’ve never heard of Boeing Guitars? More on these amazing instruments later.
Nashville High-Rise Project
The Tennessean Online today announced this new project that will grace the Nashville skyline by 2008. I raced down to the developer’s office and plopped down some cash to reserve one of these units.
Yeah…right. I’ll have to move a bit further east than Knoxville if I want to dwell in of these joints. Check it here.
Some recent gleanings from Boing Boing:
A Sticky Idea
The Genius Table is an end-table surfaced with a thick pad of giant sticky-notes. Very cool! We could use a handful of these at Cora Syndicate. You can buy one here.
Thinking and Driving
These coasters were printed using a special invisible red ink, which spreads only when moistened. The Mumbai Traffic Police placed at tables and bar counters in Mumbai's prominent bars. When a customer places their moist glass of alcohol on it, the red ink starts spreading and the face starts to bleed. Check the full skizzo here.
Iraq Is Free
LA Weekly has a large PDF of The Liberation of Iraq, a painting by Sandow Birk. Birk has made a number of paintings, including The Liberation of Baghdad, seen here. The paintings are more satirical and ironic, and many are based on paintings of the glories of war in Napoleon’s time and from Russian socialist images of battlefield glories.The Liberation of Baghdad, says Birk, is about “what we were told would happen -- happy, joyfully liberated Iraqis welcoming American troops as we free them from the shackles of oppression.” Check out the large PDF here.
A Pail Ryden
Holly Myers of LA Weekly wrote about Mark Ryden and his latest art exhibition . There are several nice photos of his paintings in the piece. "These pictures," [gallery owner Michael] Kohn remarks, "are just extraordinarily well painted. And they're weird enough to be interesting. I've noticed among my colleagues -- a lot of my colleagues out in New York, who deal with more conceptually based work -- that looking at Mark's work used to be a guilty pleasure. I saw them coming by my booth in the Miami Basel Art Fair and oohing and aahing over this extraordinarily seductive painting. This was not their normal fare but they liked it anyway. Now, little by little, it's shifting. A guy who bought one of the works in this show collects Diebenkorn and Thiebaud and John Currin and some contemporary photographers -- not just figurative work but mainstream contemporary work, and now that also includes Mark Ryden. Now people can finally do it guilt free."
That Ryden will get the attention of the art world is all but assured: He's simply too talented, too rigorous and -- more to the point -- too savvy an artist not to. More interesting, then, is the next question: What does it mean for a serious contemporary artist to be popular?
Mo Betta Sticky
Sticker Nation: The Big Book of Subversive Stickers Volume 1 is a new book from Srini Kumar and Disinformation. Srini is the creator of Unamerican.com whose stickers (i.e., I WORSHIP SATAN HA HA HA and BOY DOES HIGH SCHOOL EVER SUCK) are classic Internet schwag. Srini is incredibly prolific, coming up with sticker designs at a prodigious rate -- he also operates Sticker Nation, where you can roll your own Unamerican-style stickers.
The book is something I've never seen before: 400+ paper bumper stickers, in sheets, in alphabetical order, bound in a big trade paperback. You get hundreds of Unamerican stickers for $15, ready to peel and stick (along with the hilarious back-cover disclaimer: "Please don't sticker up public spaces or other people's property without permission. Use this book with respect for other people's property or you might get into trouble. We are not going to be held liable for your zany vandalism schemes and you are not a freak property damage robot. Use this book correctly for maximum effect.
You gotta love the ingenuity here. Try getting these on an airplane. Some designers have too much time on their hands. But it beats the heck out of watching TV. Found these babies on the groovy German site Stylespion.
They are made by Claasen & Partner
