The Retro Blog

You know how old Warner Brothers cartoons always have really pretty, well designed title cards? Well this site has carefully catalogued a great number of them for us to admire. They’re categorized by year: 1929 to 1964.

“Mars and Beyond” is a 1957 episode of “Disneyland” the tv series in which the folks at Disneyland contemplate life on other planets and man’s quest for understanding of the world around him. I like to think of it as Mickey Mouse’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. The episode is introduced by Walt himself with his personal [...]

These 50’s and 60’s “B” movies might make better MST3K fodder than they do actual entertainment, but their posters are art unto themselves. 
1. Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman

2. Attack of the Crab Monsters

3. Creature from the Black Lagoon

Ok, so I’m a bad little retro lover. I haven’t seen Mad Men, the brilliant looking TV show about 60’s advertising execs. It’s next in my Netflix queue, I swear. Anyway, that doesn’t mean I can enjoy these wonderful illustrations by Dyna Moe. [via laughing squid]

Now through August 17th you can check out an exhibit called Birth of the Cool: California Art, Design, and Culture at Midcentury at the Oakland Museum of California. It features just about everything cool about the 1950’s, from jazz to animation to architecture. The exhibit focuses on postwar southern California, and has pictures by architectural photographer [...]

Ok, so maybe it’s a little late to be getting a 2008 calendar, but hey, they’re free and they feature some nice mid-century designs. While there you can check out other Blue Ant Studio products like posters featuring retro furniture silhouettes. [via apartment therapy]

Want to spend double what you would on a new big screen plasma on a small screened bulky set? Then Brionvega televisions are for you! These aren’t so much TV’s as they are museum pieces. I guess they’re really just for arty New York types who want to be able to say “well I wouldn’t [...]

The term pin up girl was invented to describe scantily clad women in magazine photos that men could cut out and pin up to their walls. As time went by you were almost as likely to see a retro looking pin up model on somebody’s body as on a soldier’s locker. Pin up girls are [...]

When you’re not forced to look at them for school, science books can be awfully pretty. The folks over at the vintage science pool at flickr seem to understand this. It’s a gallery filled with wonderful retro science textbook illustrations.

Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi has posted a series of retro science fiction book covers to his blog. The art is all by Richard Powers, an illustrator whose work looks like Paul Klee in space.

Artist Chris Reccardi has contributed to such wonderful animated shows as Ren & Stimpy and Samurai Jack. These shows regularly exceeded my expectations and showed how fantastic televised animation could be. (Seriously, you might think Ren & Stimpy is all booger jokes, but I think more effort went into the animation of that show than [...]

The much-anticipated Charles and Ray Eames stamps are now available from the United States Postal Service. They feature the most famous of the couple’s designs stylishly laid out with vertical text. They’ll make every letter you send a little more retro fabulous. I guess sending a letter via snail mail in itself is a little [...]

As you can likely tell by the fact that I’m a 22 year-old maintaining a blog about the 1950’s and 60’s, I’m really into false nostalgia. This is why I think the emotoscope is a brilliant idea. Essentially it’s viewfinder that makes the world around you look like it’s playing out in super 8mm. You [...]

This week MoCo Loco brings to our attention two modern artists that make retro style art with a twist.

First is Lauren Bergman, an artist who paints mid century women in their typical manner (pin-up girls and domestic goddesses), but adds a touch of post-modern irony. Her subjects look stunning and optimistic despite standing near dead [...]

Isamu Noguchi was a Japanese-American artist whose designs were influenced by the best elements of both cultures. Take his 1950’s Akari light sculptures for example. They give off the lovely diffused light of Japanese paper lanterns, but also have the incredible retro style of a 1950’s modern design. With lovely atomic legs, these lamps [...]

The Retro Kid pool at flickr celebrates illustrations of children from the 1940’s through the 60’s. These drawings are glorious examples of vintage artwork from the U.S. and abroad.

Here are two excellent galleries of classical album covers from the 1940’s and 1950’s. Who knew classical music could be so hip?
The World of Light Classical Music Record Group
Vinyl Gallery: Vintage classical album cover graphics

The Diana camera was first produced in the 1960’s, and became a favorite among artists who celebrated the photographic flaws it frequently produced. Made entirely of cheap plastic, (including the lens), the camera often suffered from light leaks and blurry images. Now, of course, every hipster and their mother wants one. The reissue, called the [...]

If you love 50’s animation as much as I do, you’ll want to check out the book Cartoon Modern and its companion blog by Amid Amidi. It closely examines cartoon art from this era. For a brief period of time animators emphasized a graphic design style that focused less on realism and more on getting [...]

 
[via silera in vintage ads]

Print magazine has a feature devoted to the common “object between spread legs” design element, tracing the graphic back to its roots on the covers of 1940’s pulp novels.

Here’s a great flickr gallery of scans of kodachrome slides of 50’s and 60’s travel posters.

Here’s a whole series of old black and white retro illustrations from Russian science fiction novels. Quite gorgeous! [via boingboing]

If you’re into retro 50’s and 60’s styled art, you’ll probably recognize the work of Shag. Shag is Josh Agle, a 45 year old artist working in the medium of swank. His paintings, typically done in acrylic on wood panels, show a lot of parties you wish you were invited to. Bachelors impress their dates [...]

Here’s a gallery of gorgeous magazine covers from the 50’s and 60’s. Excellent retro designs. [via boingboing]

With their bold colors, stern faces, and often unintelligible messages, I’ve always been fond of Soviet Russia propaganda posters. The Crestock Blog has a great writeup featuring some of the best retro Soviet art. This article provides commentary on the design elements of the posters, as well as a little information about why the posters [...]

There’s a new site called Vintagraph that has an excellent collection of retro PSA’s, military posters, illustrations, travel posters, and more. The site gives you information about how and why the poster was produced (a rarity these days) and makes them available to purchase as fine art prints on museum quality paper for quite reasonable [...]

I’m constantly finding myself at junk stores, thrift shops, and garage sales looking at broken bits of things and thinking about how I might use them in some kind of decorating or animation project. Guy Robot makes for a great source of inspiration. The artist crafts retro junk into the cutest little robots you’ve ever [...]

Want to travel the world from the comfort of your chair? Just have a seat with a stack of books by Czech illustrator Miroslav Sasek. Between 1959 and 1974, Sasek wrote 18 books in his “This is…” series. Each book contains gorgeous drawings of the tourist spots, fashions, and transportation methods of the city of [...]

I didn’t make it home in time to catch the Oscars this year, but here’s a nice little look back at the posters for the best picture winners of the past. The mid century ones are quite stylish, my favorites being Lost Weekend, All About Eve, An American in Paris, and Marty. [via neatorama]

In my grade school days it was required for every student to bring a valentine for every other student in the class. I can recall purchasing boxes of Tiny Toons valentines and carefully selecting which card would go to which person, personally ensuring that no cards I deemed “too suggestive” would go to any boys [...]

Mid century military posters seem to have two common themes: loose women and loose talk. Here’s a gallery of World War II posters about the latter. Uncle Sam and some big bold text advise soldiers to keep their damn mouths shut. For some reason the U.S. government seemed to strongly associate floating hands with staying [...]

Polaroid recently announced that it is going to end all production of instant film. Although this isn’t as devastating to me as two years ago when Kodak slit the throat of Kodachrome (how I love thee, super 8), but there’s still something sad about losing a unique method of creating images. Pre digital, there was [...]

Flickr user jl.incrowd has made three great photosets:
1940’s Paperback Mysteries
Paperback Mysteries, etc., - - the 1950’s and ’60’s
Nostalgia for the Scholastic Book Club, circa ’60’s & ’70’s
[via boingboing]