Cool 45 covers

When Andrea & I vacationed in Italy back in 1999, we checked out this cool flea market in Rome with lots of fun old stuff. Found this 45 record (above) in a record bin. Love the design. I've always cherished it. One of these days I'm gonna listen to this record. It's imperative that I do.

Philosophy & Good Design at the Thrift Store

Thrift stores are a funny thing. Each time I walk into one, I'm both appalled and exhilarated. Appalled by the excessive junk that we dispose of on a daily basis, and exhilarated by the potential of finding something overlooked and forgotten. The exhilaration of possibility is what drives me. Wednesday, I walked into a thrift store that we haven't visited for quite some time and I stumbled upon some wonderfully forgotten paperbacks on philosophy and theory. Forgotten textbooks, discarded after a yard sale, perhaps. I wasn't actually seeking out these particular books, but the covers were what piqued my interest. Nice, simple graphic covers, with bold colors and text. I guess you could say on a philosophical level that I didn't find these books, but rather they found me. How profound.


The Worldly Philosophers by Robert L. Heilbroner. No mention of cover designer. Simon & Schuster, ©1953, 1961.


Physics and Philosophy: The Revolution in Modern Science by Werner Heisenberg. Cover design by Guy Fleming. Harper & Row, NY. ©1958, this edition 1962.

This last one isn't on philosophy, but was found in the same section:


The Enduring Art of Japan by Langdon Warner. Cover design by Roy Kuhlman. Grove Press, NY. ©1952.

Not sure what was erased in that upper right-hand section—original price, perhaps? Instead of photoshopping it out, I decided to leave it be.

Objectified/Subjectified

I guess you could say that this is my entry for You Thought We Wouldn't Notice.



When I first saw this incredibly cool poster for the new documentary Objectified recently, I couldn't help but think that I'd seen this concept before: objects in black, with minimal detail silhouetted up against a basic solid background. And the type, too. So, where had I seen it before? I thought to myself. Maybe it was done by the same people? Maybe Build, the company who designed the poster, is known for this sort of thing? Maybe it's a common enough concept that it's not worth finding out? Nevertheless, I began the search in my extensive archives.

Ah, yes. here it is:



The cover to Swiss Graphic Design, edited by Robert Klanten, Hendrik Hellige, and Michael Mischler, published in 2000. I don't own this book. I scanned the cover back in 2004 when I was working at Primal Screen. One of the designers there had the book on his desk and I was immediately intrigued by it.

I'm not crying foul here. I'm just presenting something that looks very similar to something else. I find it interesting that the objects themselves are rendered almost the exact same way: black with thin line details.

Here's a post on the film's blog about the logo that's shown in the middle of the poster:
Objectified logo explained.

It's there where you can get a closer look at the objects:


Click on image to view larger.

Coincidence? Or not?

I found this while writing this post: Chinese publication The Outlook Magazine rips Objectified logo. What goes around comes around, I guess.