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

Hundreds of timeless mid century modern advertisements are collected over at this flickr set. Most of this work could still be relevant today which really speaks for itself it terms of when something is done right, it can last a long time. It would be great to see some of these companies go back and pull designs like this for some of their ads today.

MCM Ads flickr

New York: Portrait of a City is a new book by Reuel Golden, a former executive editor of PDN. Golden’s book collects hundreds of beautiful images from early 1900 to present day that really capture the iconic city over the past 100 years. Its amazing knowing that millions of people have traveled through and lived in NYC and yet that last picture makes it seem like such a lonely place.

It has always been a dream of mine to visit, or if the opportunity ever presented itself, live in NYC one day. What ever the case, at least there will always be pictures I can marvel over, what better than through the lens of a polaroid. The New York City Polaroid Project by Andrew Faris beautifully captures the raw detail of the city streets, away from the large crowds, that you don’t always get to see in other photo sets.

Total mind blower. These luggage labels are from the “golden age of travel” from the 1900′s to 1960′s and were used as a small way to advertise cities and hotels. The illustrations, color combinations and typography of these things are incredible — and to think they were all created by hand! If I ever got something like this tagged to my luggage I would flip, it would seriously complete the trip. Something so simple and common as a luggage label can be designed so well that it makes you want to hang on to it forever. Then, after a good amount of time the paper starts getting old and worn and just makes it that much more appealing and sweet. Such a great source of inspiration. I could look at these things all day.

Courtesy of Tom Schifanella’s flickr stream.