Undercard Productions

The beautiful underbelly of pro football

The NYTimes had a great article this morning featuring some great design from the WW2 era. In a little known turn of events, some teams joined together to maintain their rosters during war time. The three teams were the Cardinals, Eagles, & Steelers. Compared to the celebrity status of pro football players, it is inconceivable, but then again, these guys had bigger fish to fry than taking a gun to a club.

I digress. I love. *LOVE.* The program cover on the right. I live the font choices, namely the headline of then teams. The layout seems very strong and grounded. As opposed to then cover on the left, seems more wish washy. The one on the right echoes the strength of soldiers, that I'm sure they were trying to convey, in the layout. Clean and lively. I love then Rockwellian, Leyedeckerish punter. This made me so happy this morning when I saw it.

*swoon*

I was doing some serious vibin' on this book cover archive(from SwissMiss), when I came across this cover by Jason. The Norwegian comic artist whose work I adore. I would have preferred less emphasis on the title, underplay it a bit. I feel like the sparseness plays to the actual story of Dharma Bum. I actually like this cover a lot aside form my gripe with the title. The colors actually remind me of my copy from college.

Best home video EVER

Japan from Eric Testroete on Vimeo

I came across this video today on We Made This. I love this video, it's all still photography compiled from this fella Eric's trip to Japan. It is a touching, and extremely personal account of someone's trip and it makes jetting look lame. I love the warm & fuzzy feeling of it.

Hatch Show Print wine

Once again I am a bit late to the dance on this one. Since there was no one in the city this weekend me and Stephanie decided to take full advantage of the situation. We went out, got some lunch, spent some gift cards, all the usual. I decided since there was less people in the city it would be a great idea to go to Trader Joe's Wine Store on 14th Street to fill up our wine fridge for half the price of wine stores in Williamsburg.

So we went, and as I was minding my aisle ethics and dodging shoppers I stumbled across "The Show" wine. The design was so good I grabbed it off then shelf in a burst of energy and gently placed it in the basket. There are two more, I will venture back.

The one design looked eerily similar to Hatch Show Print's book cover. The lightbulb that is Rob went off. Apparently these have been out for a bit, but I just had to blog about them cause they made my weekend.

These three wine savvy chaps known as then Three Thieves, started Rebel Wine Company, & being the savvy chaps that they are, got some awesome mass produced wine, featuring beautiful mass produced labels. I hate when all you see on packaging blogs are really nicely designed labels on like 500 dollar bottles of wine.  The wine is pretty good, though, everyone has their own palette so do not shoot the taster! I would suggest trying it yourself, if not merely for the fact that it features iconic artwork from an iconic press.

Anything with good ol' fashioned letterpress and wine makes my day. Well that & Sid Meier's Civilization on PS3.

Retro Comic Design

Found this book release via The Beat. It will cover "Comic Legends" and the likes. Based off of blog material, it is interesting to see books make their way from web to print. I however and focused more on the design. I love the composition. I love the simple coloring. They all invoke the golden age of comics. The type get a little goofy on the splash, the directions are off a bit, and there seems to some variable characters sizes, but all in all pretty good. I likey. I love the arrow, I just wish the type was more justified then the centered/not centered morph that is occurring now. All in all totally cool jacket design and probably a book I will pick up. Now I just need to get Captain America: White when it comes out and I should have my retro comic fix for the first half of next year.(preview edition number zero below)