Philately Fridays: Suriname, 1980

A trio of beautifully-illustrated Surinamese Christmas stamps promoting care for the elderly.

Philately Fridays: St. Vincent, 1980

Four stamps from Grenadines of St. Vincent for the 1980 Olympic Games.

Philately Fridays: Japan, 1980

Loving the clean style and color scheme of this geography-related 1980 stamp from Japan.

Philately Fridays: Yugoslavia, 1980

The 2014 Winter Olympics have officially kicked off, so while everyone's too distracted by their shitty hotel rooms, the rest of us should all enjoy this Yugoslavian stamp from the 1980 Winter Olympics.

Design News covers from Japan

These industrial design magazine covers from Japan are pretty next level. Designed by the fantastic Takenobu Igarashi.

Philately Fridays: Russia, 1980

Two stamps all about the Soviet Space Program. Loving the illustration style, very indicative of the era when they were created. Can anyone translate the type here?

Louis & Gilbert Hotel Cocktails

2 1980-era newspaper advertisements designed by Robert Miller for Louis & Gilbert's pre-mixed cocktail concoctions. These scream 1880 just as much as they do 1980.

Philately Fridays: Two from Japan

Wow, OK sorry it's been so long since I posted here. I've been coming up on a bunch of new stamps lately, so expect more regular updates from here on out! Kicking things back into gear with two nice geometric designs from Japan, one an expressive representation of the chaos of Expo '70 and another for 1980's JCI World Congress.

Philately Fridays: Canada, 1980

Wow it's been crazy busy over here. Sorry for the lack of updates! Here's a hot one from Canada - hope it makes up for my truancy.

Letraset Type Samples

Extra tough typography from German designer Christof Gassner for a Letraset type sample catalogue, circa 1980.

BRIO catalog, 1980

I found this catalog in my parents' garage while I was home over Thanksgiving. BRIO is a Swedish toy company specializing in painted wooden toys, the kind that you'd envision Santa's elves to stay up late at night making. BRIO created a cohesive universe of cars, trucks, buildings, imitation household appliances, and, most importantly, trains, all swimming in bold colors and formed from solid, clunky shapes.




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Olympics pictograms: Moscow 1980

The symbols for the 1980 Olympic games, held in Moscow, were designed by Nikolai Belkow, fresh out of art school. His designs are more rounded out and smoothed than Aicher's, but are still very stripped down and stylized.

Check out this production sketch that gives a behind-the-scenes look at the skeleton of each illustration. Notice that the angles he's using (30 and 60º) are much less harsh and deliberate than the 45º angles used by Otl Aicher.



I'm also really into the logo for the '80 games, a nice answer to the '76 logo featuring the Kremlin clock tower: