As you probably know the Patternbank team love vintage graphics and find these sorts of sites incredibly inspirational. The Bottle Cap Man is a great visual catolog of old and new beer and soda bottle caps from the U.S. We love the diversity of the graphics on show within the site, from cool layout ideas to interesting colour combinations, this site is a treasure trove for inspiration and ideas. Check out more of this inspiring resource and get lost in the world of bottle caps.
Brian Stechschulte is a photographer and writer who is totally absorbed in the world of beer as you can clearly see by this fantastic collection of pre 1980′s vintage beer labels from the US State of Michigan. You can check more of his collection over on his All Over Beer Flickr Page. Cheers.
Patternbank love Barry McGee’s unique personal style of fusing together found and invented imagery along with tags and assorted objects. Influenced by Mexican muralists, tramp art, the graffiti artists of the 70′s and 80′s and the San Francisco Beat poets, he creates a unique visual language. McGee, also known by his street name, Twist, is acclaimed for his work in the street and for his painted installations in galleries, museums and art festivals around the world. You can see more of his work at the Prism Gallery in California where he exhibited earlier this year.
Patternbank have a major crush on Contino’s work and not surprisingly, he has garnered considerable attention for his unique approach to design utilising hand-drawn lettering and typographic illustration in conjunction with a modern, yet minimalistic sensibility. He has received numerous accolades for his fusion of old and new world aesthetics and continues to influence modern trends in graphic design and apparel design. Jon resides in Brooklyn with his wife Erin where he works not only as a freelance illustrator, but also as Co-Founder and Creative Director of menswear brand CXXVI Clothing Company (see our post on their Spring 2012 T Shirt Collection). The Great Discontent have just done a great post on him which you can read here or check out his website for more inspiring work.
Patternbank love vintage graphics and with such an abundance of inspiring visuals on the web, sometimes it can be hard to track key graphic trends happening. This great collection of inspiring vintage potato graphics caught our eye recently. PopKulture’s Flickr site is a inspirational destination for vintage graphics, signage highlights and forgotten U.S graphics.
Patternbank love the work of NYC born artist Max Rippon (Ripo), now based in Barcelona. Heavily influenced by sign painting, Ripo creates text-based work with an urban aesthetic. Elaborately-drawn fonts, formed with watercolour, ink, graphite, sign painters enamel and oil pastels on delicate hand-cut paper, allow us to appreciate the aesthetics of the words regardless of their associations. Using techniques of calligraphy and layering, Ripo crafts letters that appear to jut and curve outside of the page in swift, fluid motion. Bleeding colours and splashes of paint burst beyond the constraints of the page, rendered in incredibly fine detail. To see more of his work both in the streets and studio check out his website ripovisuals.com and at whitewallssf.com
Patternbank are loving the way Harold Hollingsworth re-interprets vintage lettering and embellishments into beautiful layered large scale mixed media paintings. They contain a great deal of texture and depth with the beautiful hand painted vintage lettering dissected and then overlaid on to canvas and panels. For more of Harold’s work check out his website.
The Bases Loaded Series is an exploration of conceptual graphic design and storytelling using American Baseball as the vehicle. The concepts are driven home with the relationship of text and image, and the process is 100% hand-done. Raw, hand-drawn iconography in partnership with hand-crafted typography are used to convey strong and sometimes deep messages. These icons and graphics emphasize concept and idea over aesthetic. The aesthetic is achieved by way of the idea, the tools used, and the process. For more of Brian’s incredible work check here, and on this beautifully designed site – Eephus Leauge Magazine.
