Vintage Inspiration

Feeling a bit uninspired? Maybe this collection of vintage posters, prints, book covers, and postcards can kickstart your creative engine.

Flickr Pools

Jazz-Age in Print (20s-30s)
Celebrating the fabulous jazz-age illustrators and (graphic designers) and the illustrations and print design they created in the 1920s and 1930s.

Wartime Forties in Print
Celebrating the fabulous illustrators (and graphic designers) of the 1940s, and the illustrations and print design they created in (circa wartime) 1940s.

Beer and Booze: A Damn Fine Product
Vintage ads, product and package designs for America's favorite alcoholic beverages.

Vintage Cigarette Ads
Cigarette ads from the 40's and earlier.

Retro Kid
Illustrations associated with children's books from the mid-1940's through the mid-1960's.

Vintage Cookbooks
Pictures of vintage cookbook covers and page illustrations, from wacky to wonderful. Pamphlets, menus and old cooking advertisements.

Vintage Advertising
Advertising images from the past.

Vintage Magazines
Images of vintage magazines (including the eighties).

Vintage Illustration
Vintage illustrations from before 1970.

Vintage Childrens Books
Images from vintage childrens books and other items for children like cards, games, posters, etc.

Posters Post Cards
Posters and postcards old & new.


Flickr Sets

USSR Posters
Russian and/or Soviet propaganda & advert posters [1917-1991]

Vintage Book Illustration
Vintage illustrations.

Espacios Publicitarios
Anuncios publicados en las revistas "Clínica Rural" y "Glosa"
Años 50-60-70

Penguin Books
Retro covers of old Penguin and Penican books

Pretty Pictorals
Colorful retro children's pictorials.

Vintage Kid Books
Covers and illustrations.


Misc Online Resources

Soviet Propaganda Poster Gallery
A colorful resource of vintage soviet propaganda posters. Contains other soviet vintage galleries as well.

The Museum of Anti-Alcohol Posters
A gallery of anti-alcohol posters from soviet propaganda era.

The Ad*Access Project
Funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.

Chinese Public Health Posters
A collection of vintage chinese posters from the National Library of Medicine.

Hungarian Vintage Posters
Nice raw scans of an excellent group of vintage Hungarian Posters.

Vintage Print Ads
A small archive of vintage print advertising.

Misc Vintage Ads
Hilarious, shocking and creepy advertisements from the past century.


For Collectors

Vintage European Posters
A great gallery of original posters for sale from 1890-1960.

Poster Classics
A nice collection of original vintage French and Italian art posters for sale.

Rare European Advertising Posters
Authentic European Vintage Posters for sale.

Vintage Italian Advertising Posters
Original lithograph posters from the Ricordi Portfolio, published by the famous Italian printer Giovanni Ricordi in 1914.

Christopher & Co Ltd.
A great vintage collection including travel,entertainment, and propaganda posters.

Top Three Guilty Pleasures To Get You Through The Work Week

In an attempt to continue to avoid any relevant blogging here's a quick post about some fun diversions to get you through the work week.

1. Mac Widgets

Dancing Hula Girl Widget
Because everyone needs a dancing hula girl widget. Damnit.

Solitaire Widget
The only thing I miss about my PC is solitaire. Unfortunately this version for the MAC is so difficult to beat (I haven't yet) that you may be better off spending your time mindlessly staring at the Hula Girl widget. Has anyone ever beaten this thing? Seriously? Ever?

Lorem Ipsum Widget
Sleep soundly at night knowing the power of latin text will be at your fingertips. Handy for designers.

CSS Cheat Sheet Widget
No, I don't actually use it. But it makes me feel 'professional' and I'm certain it gives the other widgets an inferiority complex.


2. Celebrity Blogs and MySpace pages

9 out of 10 the MySpace pages of famous people are completely bogus. After all, famous people are far too good looking and spend way too much time tanning to ever be troubled by tasks as mundane as 'typing' and 'forming sentences' and 'punctuating sentences' and crap like that. But a few are worth a visit.

The James Gunn MySpace Page+Blog
To put it simply, the man has a way with the f*word. When he isn't bubbling over with obsessive man-love for Nathan Fillion (and his body parts), he's volunteering advice to would-be industry types along with inspired lists like 'The 5 Women I Pleasured Myself To Most As A Teenager'. Gunn is probably best known to the public as the writer/director of the horror/sci-fi flick "Slither". He is also well known for being the guy married to the chic from The Office. She has MySpace Page+Blog too. Less swearing.

The Barry Manilow MySpace Page
Why? Because who in their right mind doesn't want to be friends with Barry Manilow? I mean, C'mon.

Pink Nano MySpace Page
Hot pink. Hot music. Hotter design.

What is the motivation behind these MySpace pages and blogs? Do celebrities really want to be your friend? Does the Pink Nano? UNLIKELY. Maybe they want what everyone else on MySpace wants - to beat your freakin'friend count'.

The tally so far:

Diddy 581550 friends
Jesus 100947 friends
iPod Green Nano 47504 friends
Duran Duran 47266 friends
iPod Blue Nano 46508 friends
Mr Spock 45977 friends
iPod Pink Nano 44652 friends
Kevin Rose (Digg.com founder) 14807 friends
Barry Manilow 9664 friends
James Gunn 9578 friends
Captain Kirk 3482 friends
Nate Fillion (his evil MySpace twin) 3440 friends
Nathan Fillion (real guy) 3132 friends
Martha Stewart 1627 friends
Joss Whedon 662 friends
Yeoman Rand 290 friends
Me 29 friends

Conclusion? If you could tap into the "i-like-rap-ipod-wearing-jesus-is-a-cool-dude-trekkie" demographic you would be a god on MySpace.

3. Last but not least: Start an eclectic, offbeat, oddball group just to see if someone will join it. Join a few yourself.

my flickr groups
I *heart* my iPod Group
Pictures of your iPod? Suweeet.

The dog at my "fill in the blank" Group
You just post a picture of something your dog destroyed. That simple.

my last.fm group
Barry Manilow IS The Man Group
It's takes a certain kind of god given talent to copa around the cabana like my precious Barry.

That's it for list. Enjoy.