The Wonderlust Journal » posters

Collective Noun Posters

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:03:54 +0000

How fun are collective nouns?? This seriesof posters were created by WOOP Studios (who are also the graphic designers of the Harry Potter series) to celebrate collective nouns, which are, as they put it, “one of the eccentricities of the English language.”

It’s true! How random that we have terms for gatherings of so many different things? Terms that you really rarely use, and actually never need, considering they all mean “group.” I love it! They’re so evocative! “Murder of crows,” “parliament of owls,” “charm of goldfinches,” “party of jays” … the bird ones are some of my favorites.

I think a collection of these posters (sadly there’s no collective noun dedicated to posters, or I would have used it!) would be so cute in a kid’s room!

The Small Stakes

Eliza Coleman — Fri, 06 May 2011 20:05:14 +0000

Loving the concert poster art of Jason Munn, who works under the name The Small Stakes.

Also just discovered his work is in the collection at SFMoMA!

Alvin Diec

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 20:56:15 +0000

I recently came across the work of Alvin Diec and originally thought I’d post a couple of his pieces on Editor’s Chair. Then, I started perusing his entire portfolio, and as I usually do, I was dragging things I liked into various folders on my desktop. Then, I realized I’d dragged almost every single thing in his portfolio into one folder or another.

So, I decided to share all of it with you (or at least, a lot of it). His brand identity and graphic design work is just so spot on. Classic and authentic looking, like the brands could have been around for decades, and yet unique and interesting. And he seems to have a lot of the same obsessions that I do… things that look like old tickets, twine, airmail envelopes, ampersands, luggage tags…

Here are a few of his poster designs…

Oh! And he has a project in his porftolio called Fairly Well Made Co.– clearly a play on Best Made Co., the axe brand that I developed a serious fascination and love/hate relationship with– that makes scythes instead of axes and is hilarious. Here it is:

[And here, here, and here are past posts on Best Made Co if you missed them.]

Check out the gallery for lots more work…

PS- AND, he lives in Atlanta! Atl represent!

Minimalist Movie Posters

Eliza Coleman — Tue, 08 Feb 2011 23:19:18 +0000

Like the “unsheets” I posted a while back, these movie posters by Kyle Tezak have an awesome minimalist style; they say a lot with very little.

Here’s what Tezak says about the project:

“Lately I’ve been working a lot with icons. Trying to capture the essence of an object or idea with only a few lines and at the same time maintaining its elegance is pretty much design in a nutshell. That’s what is so great about icons, they’re tiny poems. I decided it would be a fun project to attempt to sum up some of my favorite books, movies, historical events, anything, with just four icons; the meat and potatoes.”

50 and 50: The State Mottos

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 15:57:06 +0000

This is horribly embarrassing, but If I had to point out Iowa and Missouri on a blank map, there’s about a 50/50 chance I’d mix them up. Also, the other day, I found myself in a conversation in which I was suddenly wondering if the Emirates in the United Arab Emirates were cities? Or states? How did I make it through 17 years of great schools without mastering geography?

All of that to say, I think this new project called 50 and 50, where a graphic designer from each state will illustrate their state’s motto, creating a “designers’ atlas,” may be my ticket to finally at least mastering our own 50 states.

So far, there are only six finished, but they are pretty enough that I spent time checking out each one, and if something is visually interesting, I have a far better chance of learning it…

PS- Did you know that California’s state motto is “I have found it! (Eureka)”? How awesome and (so California) is that? All of the other ones sound very formal and heavily wrought and then there’s California’s. And incidentally, as a California transplant, I talk almost every day about how I feel like I’ve discovered the best place on earth, so I can see why CA’s state motto-authors were unable to write anything other than something simply reflecting their joy at having found this state.

Tati

Eliza Coleman — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:20:39 +0000

It’s Never Too Late

Eliza Coleman — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:51:00 +0000

…to be what you want to be.

When I first saw this print, I thought it was a movie poster, like the “unsheets” I’ve been posting. Doesn’t the format, with the line along the bottom and what looks like tiny credits underneath, lead you to think so? And for a French film, the design would be perfectly suitable. It kind of looks like it could be for The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, no?

And it turns out it’s just a lovely print with a lovely meaning by an artist, and unlike the general genre of “inspirational posters,” not cheesy at all. I particularly love the (unsentimental) typeface.

Here.

["Unsheet" movie poster

posts here, here, here.]

Minimalist Series Posters

Eliza Coleman — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 16:11:00 +0000

Amazingly clever in their simplicity, “unsheets” for TV shows by Albert Exergian.

by Albert Exergian

Graphic Fix >> 2010 Rolling Roadshow Posters

Eliza Coleman — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 22:16:00 +0000

Over the summer, Alamo Drafthouse Cinema and Levi’s collaborated to put on free screenings of “famous movies in famous places.” For the series, they had new, awesome-ly graphic and pared-down posters designed for the films by Olly Moss.

I discovered these through screenwriter John August’s website in his post about what he calls “unsheets.” ”One-sheets” are what Hollywood people call the posters designed for movies that are hung outside of theaters and are solely meant to sell tickets. They are generally formulaic and not very artistic, and almost always use the font Trajan (see hilarious video here about the unending use of Trajan for movies).

“Unsheets,” on the other hand, are movie posters designed by fans after the movie has come out and typically have no commercial purpose, but rather are just designed as an homage to the movie (like these A Single Man posters I loved or this Coffee & cigarettes poster). While one-sheets are often photoshop horrors of scenes from the movie that you would never want to hang on your wall, unsheets are distilled artistic representations that get at the essence of the film and are often quite well-done, like the Olly Mosses here.

I love this concept of unsheets, both because they are often really well designed and because I like that they are commonly done by designers for fun… ie, random acts of creativity!, and will have more posts to come on them…

[2010 Rolling Roadshow]
[Olly Moss]
[past unsheet posts here and here]

The Ampersand

Eliza Coleman — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 21:20:00 +0000

Seriously love this poster for Coffee & Cigarettes cleverly containing a coffee cup, an ampersand, and a cigarette.

[fffound; I'mjustcreative]