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Olympische Spiele Munchen 1972

Posted by Scott


This Otl Aicher-designed Olympic poster is from Blanka. I see them linked on FFFFOUND all the time but I really don’t know what they’re  all about. At first I thought they were an agency but now I think they’re just some sort of design shop with all sorts of cool stuff that is never in stock. At any rate, it’s fun to look at the pictures; they have an extensive archive of vintage poster prints.

Hoffman-La Roche: Esanin

Posted by Scott

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Hoffman-La Roche commissioned this ad featuring photography by René Groebli for the anti-anxiety drug, Esanin. At first glance I really didn’t grasp how amazing this composition is. If you really study it you’ll see some incredible typography and layout. I love the image, the various faces blending to create these almost psychedelic colors is very striking. Those crazy Germans, why do they have to be so good? You’re making us all look bad.

Via Alki1 on Flickr.

Building a Photoshop Computer

Posted by Scott

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I’ve recently built a new computer and now that it’s complete and all is in working order I thought I would post some thoughts on the process and hopefully fill in some blanks on the way to go about building a computer for optimum performance in Photoshop (along with other multimedia applications). This is of course a very broad subject which would be hard to cover in its entirety in just one post, but I will try to hit the main points and provide some links to more in depth discussions. Also, if you’re a computer genius and expect this to be some sort of treatise on the intricacies of processor architectures and FSB speeds, best try somewhere else because I only know my hardware as much as I need to in order to make it work. So you might find that I oversimplify some things, but I am more concerned that things work and not why they work.  

Caveat 1: This rig was built to do large scale print work (12×18" @ 300dpi and up). If you are just doing design for the web or screen (72dpi) a lot of this might be overkill. The CPU will still be an issue, but the memory and swap disk’s roles in speeding up performance will be greatly diminished.

Caveat 2: I will be assuming you are using Photoshop CS3 so some of the examples may not make sense (e.g. menu hierarchies) but all of the core concepts will apply to any version of Photoshop.

Caveat 3: I am also assuming you have some level of technical knowledge when it comes to computer hardware / software or you probably wouldn’t be trying to build your own computer.

Caveat Emptor: I have no idea what I’m talking about.

Caveat Googlor: If you need more info than is provided here, the collective super-brain known as Google is your friend and knows a hell of a lot more about all this than I do.

So if you’re feeling brave, click the link below to read the full article.

Continue reading →

Gavin Potenza

Posted by Scott

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Ever since I saw his great 2007 Holiday Card on I’ve been waiting to see more from Gavin Potenza.  When I awoke this morning this nice little birthday present waiting for me on FFFOUND. I love the concept and I love the fact that it’s purely a design exercise, which is very fitting considering the name of his site (exploratorydesign.org). As I say in my workshops, that’s when most people will do their best work, when there is no spec, no client, no parameters other than your own.  Just you, your imagination, and your tools. As he says on his site, this piece was inspired by Otl Aicher, one can’t really go wrong with that kind of source.

It’s minimalist, reserved design like this that intrigues me more and more these days.  To me, modernism is about taking all your ideas about color and type and form and expressing them in the most efficient way possible, which I think is the very core of what we are all trying to do as designers. Also, stamps are awesome, I collected them when I was a kid…along with my obsessive hoarding of any other printed material I could get my hands on.  Unfortunately I only had access to boring American stamps so it got boring real quick.

CR vs Munich 72

Posted by Scott

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Interesting Cretive Review piece about Olympic Logos:
"With the enormous barrel of nastines currently being dumped all over the London 2012 logo, we wondered what the reception might have been for some of its predecessors had they been released today. What comments, for example, might the Herr in the strasse have come out with when confronted with design’s holiest of holies, the Munich 1972 logo?"
Read the rest of this article >

If you read down to the bottom you’ll find this surprising bit of info:
"As we revealed here, the final 72 logo is not solely Otl Aicher’s design. Aicher had wanted to use a radiating sun (which was later put to good use by the German lottery) but it was deemed impossible to copyright. His design was put out to competition, the winning entry, as judged by a panel including Aicher, being Coordt von Mannstein’s (literal) twist on the original."

And on a side note the type is set in Univers, so nice.
Image via FFFFOUND!

More From Otl

Posted by Scott

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Some more Otl Aicher Munich ’72 artifacts.  I found this image on Flickr but now can’t seem to find who took it.  If you are that person, or know who did, please let me know so I can properly credit this.  Of course the design is amazing, but the picture is great too.  The reflections are really complementary to the designs.