Work it.

‘m a bit tardy for the free calendar party: I meant to post pics a while ago of this ridiculously fabulous letterpressed calendar that Cranky Pressman sent me (for free, might I add. Fabulous Twitter offers, I love thee). The calendar was designed by Northcoast Zeitgeist and printed by Cranky Pressman, a union that makes me feel quite warm and fuzzy all over because they’re both Ohio-based. And, well, so am I. Or, at least, I was until about 9 years ago. One love, Ohio and your wonderful designers and letterpressers.

So, here it is, in all its letterpressed, retro-illustrated glory. And how appropriate that it’s emblazoned with the imperative, “WORK!”. Because that’s precisely what I need to do. Stupid dissertation.

Cranky Pressman is Keith & Jamie Berger. And they are lovely, albeit cranky. Oh, and they included a promotional letterpressed postcard and some other businesscard samples of their services with the calendar. Hopefully you can’t see the drool that seeped from my awe-struck mouth in the pictures below.

Awesome, right?

So, you should really check out both Cranky Pressman and Northcoast Zeitgeist. I’m really tempted by the possibility of having CP letterpress some of my hand-lettered/drawn stuff. And to release about 5 more gallons of drool.

I know, I’m not very lady-like.

Follow Cranky Pressman on Twitter HERE and visit their site HERE. Even their social media links look letterpressed. Jesus.

Follow Northcoast Zeitgeist on Twitter HERE and visit their site HERE.

The Taxali 300

hy don’t I live in Toronto? Or, at least, only an hour away or something? Because in Toronto there’s a place called Narwhal Art Projects. And at Narwhal Art Projects there’s an exhibition called The Taxali 300. And the Taxali 300 runs for a month, from January 28 – February 28, and it features hundreds (umm, 300?) of Taxali’s amazing illustrations and collages, together in a collection for the first time. From Narwhal’s website:

The Taxali 300 showcases hundreds of small illustrations and collages originally created for such esteemed publica- tions as Rolling Stone, Newsweek, The New York Times, GQ and McSweeneys among others. Spanning two decades and multiple awards and accolades, The Taxali 300 presents Gary’s exceptional collection of commercial illustration as a complete body of work in a gallery setting for the first time, allowing viewers to appreciate the prolific scope of visual communications and tactile character design intrinsically associated with Gary Taxali’s artwork.

It was painfully difficult to select only a handful to share with you here, so I really hope you’ll go to Narwhal’s gallery and look through them all yourselves. But here are some of my favorites. Emphasis on “some” – I have about a bajillion.

OK, I need to stop. I could post them all. Seriously.

Hope you like.

The Cornell Widow

was just gazing at some of the tons of brilliantly beautiful ephemera images over at Ephemera Assemblyman, and I thought I’d post some covers of a Cornellian student-run magazine called The Widow. It enjoyed over six decades of publication (1894-1962) until it was forced to go out of print because of yucky financial problems (ain’t that always the case?). As the Ephemera Assemblyman quotes on his site, The Widow’s name derives from “the college widow,” which was the name co-eds used to ascribe to “the girl who bowled over class after class of freshmen without really landing one.” Lovely. As you might imagine, the contents and images of the magazine could occasionally trend toward the misogynistic. But oh how the designs were lovely. Take a peek…

(All images below courtesy of the Ephemera Assemblyman)

That last cover was for an issue that appeared in 1981 (yes, 19 years after The Widow had actually folded) and was meant to mock the 100-year anthology of The Widow‘s rival, The Cornell Daily Sun).

For more covers as well as some interior content, head over to the Ephemera Assemblyman HERE.

(Initial “I” from HERE)

Vintage Rye.

Found: A collection of Catcher in the Rye covers in a variety of languages, from HERE. Oh, J.D…. R.I.P.

Some favorites:

Airline ephemera. Come fly with me, please.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who endures Ephemera Image Overstimulation (EIS) on a regular basis. There’s probably even a support group. But, for now, I’m just going to post some of the things I’ve found in the past day or two and try to make room for more. Woe is the vintage-ologist who just can’t get enough… and who realizes that there will always be more ephemera to ogle and tuck away in his/her mind’s eye.

Right now I’m tucking away Mikey Ashworth’s Old Airlines Ephemera Flickr set:

And I’m also en route to tucking away these little pieces of airline ephemera greatness:

Both of the above from Grain Edit

From Delicious Industries

From We Made This

From Bedazzled (yes, that’s really the blog name)

From Dark Roasted Blend

From Martin Klasch

Lehel Kovács’s Google Street View series

ehel Kovács is a Hungary-based freelance illustrator, and his recent Google Street View series of sketches is deservedly catching lots of internet attention lately. Some of my favorites appear below, but I strongly encourage you all to visit his website, Flickr stream, and blog for more (and I am so grateful for just how much more there is!):

Vintage international hotel luggage labels.

Just learned about this fabulous collection of vintage hotel luggage labels from The Silver Lining Blog, which is quickly becoming one of my new favorite aesthetic pleasures. Great vintage design finds that make me exceedingly happy. Anyway, back to the luggage labels. The labels below come from the Rázsó Collection.

Did I mention that they’re all available for purchase? Yeah. Hold me back.

Betsy the Paper Pinwheel.

I made my first paper pinwheel (or paper rosette, or paper piece of folded perfection, or whatever you want to call it). It looks like this:

Her name is Betsy. Betsy wanted to peek outside my window. I’m planning on embellishing her with some scalloped-edged ephemera (of a vintage French text) and a button or two. And then maybe I’ll make some friends for her and string them all together and make a little friendship garland. Not sure. But this little DIY Pinwheel thingy from Style Me Pretty is what I used to guide me in Betsy’s creation. And, amazingly, it worked! I say “amazingly” not because I expected the lovely people at Style Me Pretty to lack effective explanation, but rather because I sometimes lack effective following-crafty-directions skills.