Carnival Poster “Rescue”

[View with PicLens]

Some people hoard animals in need of a good home; I hoard posters. While my friends (link 1 and link 2) were in town, we headed over to Olvera Street in downtown Los Angeles, where a street fair augmented the already-festive atmosphere of the oldest part of LA. I spotted this hard-to-miss, day-glo poster and recognized it immediately as the work of the Colby Poster Printing company. They’re still using “old school” methods to create advertising posters, including letterpress and silkscreen, and I think it’s just plain fantastic. It was posted in several places along Olvera, but I didn’t have the cojones to even ask anyone about it, much less steal a beautiful work of public literature. Luckily, my friend Noah has nerves of steel, and asked the hostess at one of the restaurants there if he could have the poster that was taped to their lectern. It was that simple. I’m going to have to do that more often.

Stylistically, the poster interests me because of the fluorescent inks (which seem silkscreened?) and the beautiful mix of type (quite possibly letterpress printed, but possibly silkscreened), from the workhorse condensed gothics, to the bifurcated Tuscan type of “CARNIVAL,” to the brilliant rising-slope “thru” sort of the date span. The archaic, cartoony illustration is clearly a product of another [um, diversity-free] era, but it’s charming and joyful nonetheless. This whole thing simply isn’t done anymore. And that’s why I love it.

Tags: 1950s, 1960s, Colby, lettering, Los Angeles, mid-century, paper, poster, printing, retro, sign, signage, type, typeface, typography, vintage, zeitgeist

House Industries at the Eames Office

Last night, House Industries held an evening event at the Eames Office to officially unveil their new typeface set, Eames Century Modern. This morning, I had the opportunity to spherically photograph House’s temporary exhibit, preserving it for posterity.

Tags: architecture, Eames, font, House Industries, Los Angeles, mid-century, PictureBubbles, typography

Graphic Artists Guild LA Meet & Greet Follow-Up

The Graphic Artists Guild LA Area Meet & Greet went swimmingly, thanks to everybody who attended! I’ve created a Flickr group for Graphic Artists Guild events:

Tags: Graphic Artists Guild, Los Angeles

LA Graphic Artists Guild Meet & Greet

Click to download a print-friendly PDF of this flyer!

On Friday, January 8, 2010, at 7:00PM, the Graphic Artists Guild is holding a Los Angeles Area Graphic Artists Meet & Greet at Dinah’s Family Restaurant¹ near LAX. Guild membership is not required; in fact we’d love to have graphic artists of all kinds attend. A round of complimentary appetizers and non-alcoholic drinks will be provided. Additional food and beverages (including booze) are available for purchase, since Dinah’s is, after all, a restaurant.

Location information and directions:

Dinah’s Family Restaurant
6521 South Sepulveda Boulevard
Los Angeles, CA 90045-1592
(310) 645-0456
Google Maps Link

If you have any questions, leave a comment!

1. Some of you may remember Dinah’s from the “lingonberry pancakes” scene in The Big Lebowski. [↩]

Tags: event, flyer, Googie, Graphic Artists Guild, Los Angeles, news, typography

The Connie Dial Web Presence

A few months ago I posted a teaser image from a project I was not yet ready to announce. The project has actually been complete for a little while now, so I can finally go into detail about it, as I am wont to do.

Connie Dial is author living in Los Angeles county, and spent 27 years with the LAPD. Her experience as a detective and working undercover gave her plenty of inspiration to write. With the release of her first big novel, she wanted to promote her work on the web. We built her site entirely in WordPress so that every aspect of it is easy to edit and manage.

Visually, it was decided early on that we would pursue a sort of “film noir and Art Deco meets Los Angeles Police Department” look. I gathered a collection of images that were on point; these included images from Dragnet, photos of building signage (including the iconic Broadway Hollywood sign), shots of the LA courthouse, and a selection of vintage police ephemera. I liked the wispy, foggy, “diffuse glow”  feel; it lends itself well to the lighting and lens choices of old Hollywood films, and also to the smoggy feeling of how Los Angeles used to be (it’s actually not as bad anymore, save for all the brush fires we have here lately). In looking for commonalities amongst the images I gathered, I found a tendency toward the architectural detail of parallel lines and three-dimensional surfaces—the “streamline” look. It occurs also on the Beretta 9mm pistol—another cop tie-in. There’s also the motif of the sunburst, prominently used on the LAPD badge. Typographically, I drew inspiration from said badge, as well as vintage signage and newspaper design.

After presenting a slew of sketches, Connie selected a sketch that was derivative of a combination of an old Brown Derby menu and the Broadway Hollywood sign. I decided it would be well-worth the effort to create the logo as a 3D model of a rooftop sign, and to use the model as an element of a virtual landscape evocative of the zeitgeist I endeavored to recreate. In the process, I may have become a bit carried away, as I created a pretty realistic neon light system connected to the extruded letterforms. I wanted it to look as convincing as possible, and so I crafted the tubes in such a way that they could actually be manufactured—at least according to my extremely naïve knowledge of neon light design. It’s hard to tell from the resolution on the website, but when rendered up close with a glass material on the tubes, it looks pretty neat. This is why I blog about our projects—some of this stuff would never see the light of day otherwise.

Interesting note: in researching The Broadway Hollywood and its signage, I found that they had recently created a pretty nice looking website, including a slightly revamped version of their building’s roof logo. Even better: further research uncovered a new, custom typeface that was developed specifically for the building’s new branding. I love when businesses appreciate what they have, rather than trying to erase their history altogether. This is a terrific example of how things should be done—drawing direct inspiration from the building’s history and iconic visual motifs. Kudos.

Visit Connie Dial’s site at www.conniedial.com, and see this entry on the three steps ahead portfolio.

Tags: 1930s, 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 3D, architecture, art deco, author, font, identity, lettering, logo, Los Angeles, neon, render, retro, sign, signage, streamline, typeface, typography, vintage, website, wordmark, WordPress, zeitgeist