Brian Paul Nelson – Branding / Design / Illustration">Brian Paul Nelson

With the Olympics about to begin, I had to post these amazing posters from the 1972 Munich Games designed by German Designer Otl Aicher. He is best known for being the lead designer of the ’72 Olympic Games which was completely branded without compromising to the core philosophies of design. The whole campaign would be just as successful today as it was almost 40 years ago. Not to mention, you can’t beat the layouts, type and color combinations above, they are so on point with each other. Now days it has unfortunately come down to things like this, this and this, which falls really short when you begin to compare. Recently is just seems like the designs have been pushed out the door once a mediocre concept has been determined. So unfortunate.

View the posters above along with more from the ’72 Games at Blanka, where you can also purchase some of the originals, at a hefty price of course. Check out more Otl Aicher and Olympic goodness at this flickr set as well.

“Good design is as little design as possible.” Truer words have never been spoken and by quite possibly my favorite industrial designer, Dieter Rams. To me, Braun produced some of the best industrial product and print design for nearly the last half of the 20th century, which was backed by the brilliance of Rams for more than 40 years. All of these products are perfect in their own right and don’t require anything more to make them functional or aesthetically pleasing, which is why they still look just as great today as when they were produced. Wonder why Apple products look so nice? Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial Design has stated before that he is heavily influenced by Rams and his work. Nonetheless, Ram’s work gets me so freakin’ excited about design each time I see it. Be sure to check out the flickr pages and short documentary below.

Dieter Rams flickr
Braun flickr

via AisleOne

Experimental Jetset is a studio definitely worth checking out if you don’t know about them already. Based in Amsterdam, it was founded in 1997 by Marieke Stolk, Danny van den Dungen and Erwin Brinkers after graduating from the Gerrit Rietveld Academy. Their website is a day-wrecker for sure because there is so much work to look through and is difficult to stop once you get started. What’s great is that the archive of their work dates back to the beginning which brings a nice mix to their portfolio and allows you to follow their progress through the years. You may recognize them from the work they created for the wonderful Helvetica documentary back in 2007 — which, if you haven’t seen, you need to get on that. Above are some of my favorite works by them. Another great feature about their website is how in-depth they go into each project and explain the entire process and outcome of most of their work. Always an inspiring trio.

experimentaljetset.nl/

This is what I arrived home to today — a beautiful 18×24, limited edition screen print from the nice and talented guys over at Delicious Design League. The amount of work that this duo puts out is insane. Most of their work are screen printed posters and art prints that you can purchase at really affordable prices, however, they also design for other mediums as well. Definitely worth checking out and grabbing a few prints.

Eat…sleep…design. Devotion to the craft. It’s always nice seeing others so dedicated.

I love when I come across beautiful info-graphics that successfully bridge the gap between typography, illustration and photography all while keeping the important information at the forefront of the design. One place to always look for awesome info-graphics is Good Magazine, which is where I first saw these a couple months ago, yet I was never able to put a name to the face per say until now. Always With Honor, “a design collective specializing in icon, information and map design run by Tyler Lang and Elsa Chaves,” are the ones who are behind the images above. Their eye for detail is just remarkable and make for a fun and intriguing time overlooking the information. Not to mention, their illustration skills are spot-on. My favorite is definitely “The Hall of Mascots.”

They also have this shirt for sale. Just look at that bear…so totally sweet! Purchase here.

Prepare to have a good chunk of your time taken up if you are going to look at these because there are many more once you click the link. Eric Carl posted to his flickr what seems to be every page from the mid-70′s edition of the book World of Logotypes, which holds many classics, along with some old gems that are still around today. This stuff is pure awesome and is always a great place to turn to when you are looking for a collection of logos to get you inspired. The book is of course out of print, but if I could find a copy, it would definitely be a part of my library.

View the collection. Thanks Eric.

What better way to start off the Atlas blog than by taking a step back and showing some love to one of my favorite designers ever, Adolphe Jean-Marie Mouron, better known as A.M. Cassandre. He has always been a huge source of inspiration, I am constantly blown away each time I view his work. Seeing that he created such posters as above, well before computers were around just amazes me, especially when it comes down to how he handled type. If only I could go back in time and watch him work. The above images can be viewed along with much more of his incredible designs here, courtesy of www.cassandre.fr.