Film director Ingmar Bergman was a frequent writer of notes. To celebrate Ingmar Bergman's 100th anniversary, Bergman's characteristic handwriting has been made into a web font.

For over 60 years, Ingmar Bergman wrote everything – from entire manuscripts to passing thoughts – by hand in his yellow notebooks. To commemorate the centenary of his birth, we have created a font based upon his handwriting. Add a touch of drama to your everyday life by having Bergman write your grocery list, a greeting to grandmother or a shout out in social media. […]

Try it out for yourself here, but be aware that what you'll scribble end up for all to see at the left side.

Via Swedish Television. H/t Feber (SE).

If you're interested in logo design, take a few minutes to watch and enjoy designer Aaron Draplin when he creates a timeless logo.

The short documentary "Roadliners" is a documentary about the occupational group that is responsible for roadmarkings. Watch a day in the life of Glasgow roadliner Thomas 'Tam' Lilley as he creates some nice street typography.

Via Notcot.

Font retailer FontShop's website The 100 Best Typefaces of All Time lists like the site name says, 100 high-quality licensable typefaces that have been selected by a jury of international experts.

FontShop's selection differs from other typeface charts because it is both subjective and as objective as possible. By incorporating its own sales figures and various bestseller lists from the past ten years (see "Scoring Criteria" below), FontShop ensured that the users of the nominated typefaces also had input into the selection. The subjective element was provided by an independent jury of international experts. On the basis of the "commercial" pre-selection they were able to eliminate fonts, nominate others, reorder, veto and up- or downgrade. After several rounds of this, everyone had agreed on a list of the top 100 typefaces.

The 900-page coffee table book "Beyond the Wall: Art and Artifacts from the GDR" by Justinian Jampol and published by Taschen, features over 2500 items from the the Wende Museum's East German Collection.

This encyclopedic volume features over 2500 items from its extraordinary collections. Never before has a book included this full a spectrum of art, archives, and artifacts from socialist East Germany: official symbols and dissident expressions, the spectacular and the routine, the mass-produced and the handmade, the funny and the tragic. Packaged in a slick, portable box, the book also comes with a facsimile of a GDR family scrapbook, documenting real and imagined travels both within East Germany, and across the border.

You can order the book on Amazon here.

H/t Umbrella Magazine.

The following Swedish travel posters come from the coffee table book "Come to Sweden : reseaffischerna som charmade världen" (The Travel Posters That Charmed the World) by Jens Vagland and Michael Tjelder. Vagland and his team run the company Come to Sweden that offers vintage Swedish travel posters and additional related products such as notebooks and postcards.

"Have a Good Time" poster by Inga-Greta Solbreck-Möller, 1952:

"The Midnight Sun Hotel, Lapplandia, Sweden" poster by Gunnar Nordgren, 1948:

"Svenska skidspelen, Nässjö, Stockholm" (The Swedish Ski Games) poster by Kurt Netzler, 1955:

"Scandinavian Airlines System" poster by Staffan Wirén, ca. 1960:

"Wintersport in Zweden" postcard by Hjalmar Thoresson, 1938:

"Sälen och Transtrandsfjällen" (The Transtrandsfjällen Mountains, also known as the mountains of Sälen) poster by Gunnar Nordgren, 1953:

"Im Hohen Norden, Schweden" (In the Far North) poster by Olle Skrede, 1940s:

Image credit: Come to Sweden

Jane McDevitt has collected and compiled a large number of Eastern European matchbox labels from the 1950s and 60s that you can view on Flickr. Below are a few samples:

Moskau Grotesk is a beautiful typeface created by designer Björn Gogalla that is based on the work of East German graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel and the lettering display he created for the restaurant Café Moskau in the 60's.

The Café Moskau, across from the Kino International on Karl-Marx-Allee in Berlin Mitte was one of the prestige edifices of the former DDR (German Democratic Republic). Built in the early 1960s, it advanced over the years and changing social developments to a trademark building of the capital. The lettering display on the roof was created by the graphic artist Klaus Wittkugel (October 17, 1910 – September 19, 1985). He had been Professor at the School for Applied Arts in Berlin, and, in addition to the creation of many posters, book covers and postage stamps, he was responsible for the signage of the Kino International as well as for the complete graphic treatment for the Palace of the Republik.

The signage for the Café Moskau with the words »RESTAURANT«, »CAFÉ«, »KONZERT« and »MOCKBA« set in capital letters, becomes the basis for the Moskau Grotesk which was developed by Björn Gogalla in 2013. This face should not be seen as an imitation. A few shortcomings were »fixed«. In favor of maintaining the core characteristics some unique features were, however, not relinquished. Lower case letters and the missing capital letters were designed from scratch. It is not surprising that the plain, unassuming geometrical direction of the basic character style forms a bridge to the architecture of the 1960s. Inspired by the then favored, diverse possibilities inherent in the architectural example and wall reliefs, two complimentary pattern fonts emerged.

Featured image: A man and two women modelling clothes in an oil refinery in old East Germany taken from the photographic exhibition "Colour for the Republic: Commissioned Photography on Life in the GDR" (2014) by Martin Schmidt. Via Deutsche Welle.

Here, presented by Vox, a short story about the great typeface Futura.

Via Holy Kaw.

When Syracuse University was looking to enhance its brand identity in collaboration with well-known design firm Pentagram, a search in the university's archives started something that ended with a new elegant typeface for the univeristy.

In this short presented by the Great Big Story, typographer Vincent Connare talks about how he came to create the font Comic Sans that was pre-programmed on 90s versions of Microsoft Word.

In 2014, Connare wrote a statement defending his font after The Sydney Morning Herald met criticism for having used Comic Sans on their cover.

I must admit after having seen this video, the font doesn't look too bad when incorporated with illustrations.

Via Boing Boing.

If you're a fan of vintage business cards, this Flickr group will give you ample inspiration, but not overwhelm you.

And when you're done looking on those, why not look through some of the vintage business cards that were used by the people responsible for building America's nuclear program in the 60's and 70's.

Featured image: Via Flickr user Alan Mays.

The Don Thomas Poster Collection consists of vintage airline posters that was donated to the San Diego Air and Space Museum by Mr. Thomas who was an aircraft memorabilia collector.

Sudan Airways:

Air France French West Africa poster:

British Airways Concorde poster:

Air France North Africa poster:

Sell Aviation poster:

This compilation of VHS logos from the 80's is a great source of inspiration to designers, either in print or video. The compilation "Ident-a-Thon" has previously been taken down but has now been reuploaded.

The very popular brand of memo and notebooks, "Field Notes", created by graphic designer Aaron Draplin in 2007, is heavily influenced and inspired by promotional American farmers memo books, distributed by seed, tractor, and agricultural companies.

Draplin has over the years collected fifteen drawers of these types of books, and some of them can now be seen in "The Memo Book Archive", where they have been nicely scanned and sorted. What a treat!!!

A Flickr user has uploaded a wonderful and large collection of Indian matchbox labels. Due to the fact that so many labels appealed to me, this post is rather long.

The following text is taken from the back cover of the book "Matchbook: Indian Match Boxlabels" (2012) by Shahid Datawala:

Sold in every road-side booth, matchboxes are part of daily life in India. Curious, hilarious and visually stunning, matchbox labels come in a staggering variety of designs. Inspired variations on successful labels are an accepted part of the matchbox world, deliciously turning the whole notion of branding upside down.

Matchbook showcases over 500 quirky members of this extended family, and includes a thoughtful essay on locating them within the web of Indian commerce and popular culture.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences has put together a beautiful animated video with posters from some of the films from the early 20th century to present that have won the Academy Award for Best Picture.

"The King's Speech" (2010):

"Rocky" (1976):

"The Bridge on the River Kwai" (1957):

"One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" (1975):

Via Tjock (SE).

Dick Sheaff from The Ephemera Society of America shows us that junk mail isn't a modern day phenomena. The same get-rich-quick schemes that exists today, existed back in the days, but then they were delivered by mail with the help of the local mailman.

The mid- to late-nineteenth century saw the beginnings of advertising agencies (most, at first, simply placing newspaper ads for their clients), of compiled mailing lists and pre-printed labels…and of junk mail fishing for fresh, new contacts. For a variety of reasons, the first junk mail (targeted mail, generic mail…take your pick) went to and through local postmasters. Small town postmasters knew anybody and everybody in town, knew their businesses, knew their interests, knew their foibles. Much such mail was addressed directly to the postmaster, asking him to pass it along to someone in town likely to be interested in the product. Other mail, addressed to "The Leading (Teacher / Grocer / Doctor / you name it)" in town also bore a side note to the postmaster asking him to re-direct it to somebody else likely to be interested, if appropriate.

Postmasters in those days were allowed to send and receive Post Office business mail for free; many a PM took advantage by engaging in some other occupation on the side using the free mail privilege. Not really kosher, but Washington largely looked the other way. Knowing this, some early junk mailers made it clear on the outer envelope that the PM was welcome to sign up as a local company agent and do some business with and for them.

"…hand this letter over to any man who wants to make $5,000":

Via Neatorama.