8-Bit Animation Mapping Nuclear Explosions: A Video by Isao Hashimoto

"2053 - This is the number of nuclear explosions conducted in various parts of the globe."

Japanese artist Isao Hashimoto rendered this 14-minute long animation that maps out all nuclear explosions around the world from 1045-1998.  It starts out slow, but after 3 minutes the amount of nuclear explosions per country per year starts sounding like experimental electronic music -- which sounds cool, but is definitely the sign of something bigger and scarier.  I had no idea that this many nuclear explosions have taken place, and who knows what the lingering effects are of such nuclear disasters.

In the artists own words:

"This piece of work is a bird's eye view of the history by scaling down a month length of time into one second.  No letter is used for equal messaging to all viewers without language barrier.  The blinking light, sound and the numbers on the world map show when, where and how many experiments each country have conducted.  I created this work for the means of an interface to the people who are yet to know of the extremely grave, but present problem of the world."

Vintage Public Health Service Posters (1940-1975)

The National Library of Medicine has a very nice collection of U.S. Public Health Service Posters on their website, in an exhibit called the Iconography of a Contagion.  There's a bunch of cool posters from the 20th Century, definitely fun to click through.

Poster credits go to Leonard Karsakov who designed this photomechanical print for the United States Public Health Service in 1945.

Thanks to StanleyMoons for the tip.

New Poster: Obey + Atrak Collaboration

OBEY and ATRAK collaborated recently to create this rad poster.  Who can contest a well-styled, blinged-out chicken burning a cabin on fire with his cigar?

You can purchase the poster set or the cd from 80sPurple here.

OTHER POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE:

Poster Release: OBEY "Glass Houses" screen print on sale Today

New OBEY poster for the documentary 180 South

 

Obey + Shepard Fairey - new posters and April designs

Poster Release: OBEY "Glass Houses" screen print on sale Today

This beautiful canvas screenprint by OBEY goes on sale today for $45 as part of a limited edition of 450.
More details in the original post on the OBEY website here.

"Keep Calm and Carry On" Poster - Graphic Design from WWII 1939

From reformschool.com

from lulubird6's Flickr.

Here's a little lesson from British graphic design history, quoted from Wikipedia as it's written so well:

"Keep Calm and Carry On was a propaganda poster produced by the British government in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, but never used. It was rediscovered in 2000 and has been re-issued by a number of private sector companies, and used as the decorative theme for a range of other products."

"The poster was initially produced by the Ministry of Information in 1939 during the beginning of World War II, and was intended as a "last case scenario" to be used only should the Nazis succeed in invading Britain via Operation Sea Lion, in order to stiffen resolve. Two-and-a-half million copies were printed, although the poster was distributed only in limited numbers. The designer of the poster is not known."

From atlassignsandplaques.com

From atlassignsandplaques.com

From atlassignsandplaques.com

From kareywood.com

from MetalFacades.com

 from MetalFacades.com

From BarterBooks.com

"The poster was third in a series of three. The previous two posters from the series, "Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory" (800,000 printed) and "Freedom is in Peril" (400,000 printed) were issued and used across the country for motivational purposes, as the Government assumed that the nerves of the public would be shot to pieces (they soon changed their tactics)."

From BarterBooks.com

"Planning for the posters started in April 1939, by June designs were prepared, and by August 1939, they were on their way to the printers, to be placed up within 24 hours of the outbreak of war. The posters were designed to have a uniform device, be a design associated with the Ministry of Information, have a unique and recognisable lettering, with a message from the King to his people (whereas it later notoriously became "the People's War")."

"The slogans were created by civil servants, with Waterfield coming up with "Your Courage" as "a rallying war-cry that will bring out the best in everyone of us and put us in an offensive mood at once". These particular posters were designed as "a statement of the duty of the individual citizen", un-pictorial, to be accompanied by more colloquial designs. The "Your Courage" poster was much more famous during the war, as it was the first to go up, very large, and was the first of the Ministry of Information's posters. The press, fearful of censorship, created a backlash, and thus a lot of material related to these posters has been kept by archives."

More recently in 2009, the UK police force posted these posters around town, looking like they were inspired from the Keep Calm Carry On posters.

From AttitudeDesign

Now for the Parodies:

From NothingRelevant

From NothingRelevant

From NothingRelevant

OTHER POSTS YOU MIGHT LIKE:

Vintage Circus Posters and flyers from the Leeds Playbill Archive

 

 

Rafael Tufiño - A classic Puetro Rican poster artist from New York

 

 

Vintage Japanese posters for the Industrial Expo from the 1928-1941

Obey + Shepard Fairey - new posters and April designs

Exhibition Poster for Shepard Fairey's upcoming solo show in New York's Deitch Projects in May.

Exhibition Poster for Shepard Fairey's upcoming solo show in New York's Deitch Projects in May.

Fairey's new Smokey Robinson print, signed by both of them.

Fairey's new Smokey Robinson print, signed by both of them.

These Parties Disgust Me print, sold out pretty quickly.

Lotus print from the recent Make It Right Auction.

Shepard's Compassion print as a tribute to the 75th birthday to His Holiness the Dalai Lama

Monk print on canvas from the recent Art of Elysium, “Pieces of Heaven” Art Auction

For some older stuff by Shepard Fairey, check out our previous post on Flyer Goodness here.

Obey Giant - New Stuff

Poster for show in Cincinnati only available there.

Definitely good for a a comic tour poster, like Tyler Stout's Flight of the Conchords work.
Sold out here 

.

Collaboration with Shepard Fairey, Cleon Peterson and Casey Ryder.
For Artists for Peace and Justice.  All proceeds go to Haiti.

If you're a Steven Colbert fan, download the printable pdf here.

Collaboration with Ernesto Yerena, available here.

Shepard Fairey of Obey Giant seems to be doing work for not-so-typical clients lately; the Henry Rollins and Stephen Colbert prints definitely surprised me.  I can't say much about how much Goodness is in those posters (I doubt that the colbert one was actually touched by Shepard's hand...looks like something you could draft up in Illustrator...while forgetting completely about the type).  However, the typography and geometry is VERY appealing in the first one, and I hope that's not arguable.  See more OBEY in our previous posts.

Obey Giant

Some newer and older posters from Obey.
Some say Shepard is losing his touch with his newer work after his image really got bigger after the establishment of obey and his print work for the Obama campaign.

Either way, he's still laying it down on the government with his art direction that represents a voice much larger than his own, offering inspiration and affecting others to do work.

>>More on the "Let Fury Have the Hour" Documentary

>>Shepard's most recent poster done in response to the disappointing efforts in health reform.