3 posts in Visuals of the Day

Remember the Nineties?

In the 1980s and ’90s, Emigre was a prolific powerhouse. The company started out as a magazine in the mid-1980s, but quickly became a type foundry as the Mac enabled desktop publishing. As a young designer in San Francisco who started out in the ’90s, Zuzana Licko and Rudy VanderLans were local heroes (they were based across the Bay in Berkeley). From 1990–1999 they churned out 37 typefaces for a total of 157 fonts. And in that decade, they expanded their influence by getting into music, artists book publishing, and apparel. More than any other design brand, they celebrated art and artists.

Here is a page from a just-released booklet (with a free downloadable PDF) showcasing their fonts from the Nineties.

Two-page yellow spread featuring bold black typography samples. Left page shows “NINE INCH NAILS” in Platelet Heavy, “majorly” in Venus Dioxide Outlined, both dated 1993. Right page shows “Reality Bites” in Venus Dioxide, a black abstract shape below labeled Fellaparts, also from 1993.

Fantastic Four: Retro Futurism

On 4/4, Marvel released a wonderful teaser poster for their upcoming movie, The Fantastic Four: First Steps. This will be the fourth iteration of the first family of comics on film. There was an unreleased Roger Corman-produced movie from 1994, with a fascinating history.

Blue and white graphic poster for the Fantastic Four movie. It shows the number 4 repeated in depth, with silhouettes of the main characters in the center.

Retro Safety

I was visiting a customer of ours in Denver this week. They're an HVAC contractor and we were camped out in one of their conference rooms where they teach their service technicians. On the walls, among posters of air conditioning diagrams were a couple of safety posters. At first glance they look like they're from the 1950s and ’60s, but upon closer inspection, they're from 2016! The only credit I can find on the internet is the copywriter, John Wrend.

Sadly, the original microsite where Grainger had these posters is gone, but I managed to track down the full set.

Illustration of a padlock shaped like a human eye with text that reads “give the lock… A SECOND LOOK,” promoting safety awareness from Grainger.