For a long time now I have had a beef and it is now time to share it.  It is an age old question that has plagued mankind since the dawn of the automobile:  Why can’t someone with decent graphic design skills be used to design the worthless graphics on the sides of the RV vehicle? I have spent countless moments of head-shaking and wincing while on the highways when I pass RV’s of all makes and models, only to be staring at badly executed attempts at “cool”.. || Continue Reading →

I stumbled upon this print ad and had to share. “Lasinen Lapsuus” is Finnish for “Glass Childhood“.  This print ad campaign, designed and created by Euro RSCG Helsinki is for the purpose of educating the public. The Fragile Childhood activity has begun in 1986 and has been established as a well-known form of activity in Finland. Its goal is to help children who suffer from parental alcohol misuse. As quoted by someone who was effected by the project: I.. || Continue Reading →

While the neon-bright colors of the 80’s were just starting to get going in the color palettes of graphic designers during this time, it is interesting to note that there were a lot of good movie posters designs that decided to keep it simple and just go with black and white.  While a few of those b/w posters made it in my list, there were some others that used color and a few other innovative conventions of design to make their posters stand out from the pack. Blow Out What.. || Continue Reading →

While I know that this book came out in 2006, and had a major-motion picture release of it in 2008, it was only last week that I picked up this book in a used bookstore.  While my usual genre of fiction is adventure, crime fiction, thrillers, I felt a particular calling to dive into a horror novel.  Especially one that Stephen King endorse as the “best horror novel of the new century”. The first thing I noticed about The Ruins by Scott Smith was the fact that there.. || Continue Reading →

I love “gig posters” (concert posters) almost as much as movie posters.  Therefore when I came across young designer Logan Alexander’s poster design for a local gig for Peter Bjorn & John, I instantly fell in love with it. The reverse orientation, the low saturated color palette, the TONS of negative space and the modern use of typeface is fabulous.  Logan is a college student in St. Louis and it looks like this guy has a great career ahead of him as a.. || Continue Reading →

It was the start of a decade of big hair, checkerboard Vans, and the introduction of music videos. In the realm of graphic design, it was the year of bright, neon color palettes, airbrushed illustrations, and geometric shapes that showed up in everything from album covers and magazines to… you guessed it, movie posters. However, the full effect of this shift was not yet apparent in the first year, that is 1980. However, that doesn’t mean the year was short of a few,.. || Continue Reading →

If you grew up in the 1980’s, one of the most pinnacle movies that helped shape a generation was The Breakfast Club.  And the pioneer behind it and many other great movies of the 80’s was John Hughes.  After his death, many communities held their own tribute film festivals that paid homage to the film great. Creative designer and illustrator Troy DeShano designed a series of minimalistic posters that helped promote one of these film festivals celebrating the life.. || Continue Reading →

Here is the final year of the decade of disco and what do we have to show for it in the way of nicely designed movie posters?  Fewer than I would have liked, but never-the-less, the list for 1979 is below… Agatha (1979) I really liked the simple concept of this poster to showcase a biographic movie about one of the greatest mystery writers of all time.  Utilizing the assemblage of a jigsaw puzzle to work the layout space from the promo copy to the title treatment was.. || Continue Reading →