Vintage Communication Design

I recently came across the Austin based creative firm Helms Workshop. They've an eclectic portfolio that clearly harks back to bygone era's. Despite this, their work is far from dated and their collaborative projects create some distinctive brand identities, websites and packaging. Their use of vintage typography is refreshingly bold and their reference to iconic visuals in their illustrations are bang on.

Full Steam Brewery brand identity project 

Promo poster for The Hold Steady’s 2006-7 tour supporting their new release, Boys and Girls in America.

Lovely little animation for Wolf & Wolf Optometrist's

Vintage Festival Southbank 2011

Here are a couple of drawings I produced as part of my mini residency at the Southbank Centre's Vintage Festival last weekend. I am thrilled to have been part of such a fantastic event and feel it has provided me with almost too much inspiration to capture on a page! This, then is the start of a much bigger project that will develop my first findings. So, keep your eye out for more in the future!

 

Having created a largely typographic piece, I found myself being drawn to the various vintage typefaces that peppered the festival in the stall holder's logos, the bric-a-brac stalls and the brilliant Southbank signage created by the amazing Morag Myerscough. Here are some of my snaps of the type I found and lovely people I met.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

10 Days by Ripo

Typography and illustration so often runs the risk of appearing like impotent decoration. I for one am (proudly) guilty of producing work that's stylistically beautiful but perhaps lacking in concept or thought provoking message. The same cannot be said of this wicked video by Ripo. An incredibly talented typographic artist with refreshing ideas he's appears to buck the trend of ornamental typography. Yes, I'm late in discovering it but I need to share it just incase.

Typography Inspiration

During my time at LCC I had the pleasure of meeting Dave Dabnar in his letterpress studio. Once you get past the dodgy scene-setting intro, this film captures Dave's typographic passion and wisdom. I remember thinking that his somewhat ridgid views regarding digital typography, were so valuable. It's so easy to meaninglessly move type and image around a page on a computer. Type setting on the other hand, makes you slow design down much like writing on a typewriter disables you to reshuffle words to make sentences sound good. 

I then remembered a friend telling me about Will Self's conversion to typewriting as a way of thinking more about what your creating. Speaking about the difference in approach he says:

"I think the computer user does their thinking on the screen, and the non-computer user is compelled, because he or she has to retype a whole text, to do a lot more thinking in the head," Will Self on Typewriting. Full Article here

I really try to retain the sort of creative approach upheld by Dave and Will in my own work and think that every designer can benefit from swapping mouse for pen, keyboard for metal. Even just for a day!