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home > Tips & Tutorials >> RETRO VINTAGE DESIGN INSPIRATION FOR GRAPHIC DESIGNERS
Vintage and Retro Design Inspiration
List of 180+ of the Best Design Inspiration Showcase Sites (Graphic Designers & Web Designers) - Are you looking for a little inspiration for your next design project? This list will get you through next million inspiration jams. This is a list that boasts 180+ design inspiration sites. If I have missed any inspirational sites, please comment about them below and I will add them to the list if they belong on the list.
28 Vintage / Retro Web Design - Vintage design is a current trend. I got you a nice collection of 28 retro websites for inspiration.
Awesome Pin-Ups Vintage Inspiration - Who doesn't love Pin-ups? These pretty ladies have been out there for over 50, 60 years, and still look fresh and awesome. And they are great source of inspiration!
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Ad Access - The Ad*Access Project, funded by the Duke Endowment "Library 2000" Fund, presents images and database information for over 7,000 advertisements printed in U.S. and Canadian newspapers and magazines between 1911 and 1955.
Adaholic - Visit the Adaholic art gallery and find your favorite 100% original print ad and get a piece of fabulous history to enjoy and collect!
Ad Flip - Adflip brags to be "the worlds largest collection of classic printed ads" and has some "Gallery of the absurd" style comments in the top ten section. Collection is huge - from the 40's onwards - neatly categorised and searchable. Good as well as "so bad they are funny" ads in here - as well as just bad
Advertising Archive - Buy or sell old ads here, they have ads dating from the turn of the century, on the first page you are greeted by the Heinz Ketchup Ad where a woman exlaims "you mean a woman can open it?" about the new twist off cap. Oh dear! From the ad-pre-historic to clasics, visitors can search and download adverts from all eras in the vast database
American Package Museum - The primary objective of this site is to preserve and display specimens of American package design from the early decades of the 20th century.
The Emergence of Advertising in America: 1850 - 1920 (EAA) - Presents over 9,000 images, with database information, relating to the early history of advertising in the United States.
HAT Archive - Provides a vast and unique research resource. The collections consist of every kind of advertising and public relations material, including original artwork, posters, point of sale promotions, brochures, proofs, press and magazine cuttings, complete consumer magazines, direct mail, photographs, transparencies, audio and video tapes,
Tic Toc Toys - Crazy ad galleries, kids food packaging, cartoon charachters and animated 1950's ads in this retro collection.
Back to Basics : Inspiration from 1940s War Posters - I recently came across a library of US WW2 Posters and pulled out a selection of examples for as a showcase of inspiration. They each rely on the basics of design; composition, typography and colour (be it a limited palette of mostly black and red inks to conform to the available printing technologies) to put across a short and concise message with high visual impact.
Celebration Of Vintage and Retro Design - Retro and vintage designs are often considered as being outdated, looking old, unattractive and dull. That’s not true. Although compared to modern design, retro is mostly a completely different realm, it has a large variety of benefits modern graphic designers often tend to overlook. And that’s a pity. Because we, as designers, can learn a lot from it.
Colors Pretty : Vintage Inspiration - Feeling a bit uninspired? Maybe this collection of vintage posters, prints, book covers, and postcards can kickstart your creative engine.
Comic Style Effect in Pixelmator - I know it's been quite awhile since the last time I published a Pixelmator tutorial, but the wait is over. This weekend I took some time to play around with Pixelmator and I also had the opportunity to test out the new beta version called Tempo. I must say, the new features are really neat. That’s all I can say about that.
Design Inspiration: Early 20th Century Posters - Of all periods of graphic design, my favorite has to be the early 20th century. I love the use of color, and the typography is just beautiful. Recently I’ve found a nice source of inspiration in that vein at InternationalPoster.com where there is a huge collection of vintage posters searchable by subject, period, style, artist, etc. They also have a very interesting history of poster art to peruse. Some of my favorite finds there:
Grain Edit : The Year in Review - Tomorrow we will be celebrating the 1 year anniversary of Grain Edit and we’ve got a big giveaway planned, so be sure to stop by! We’ve had a great year and want to thank all our awesome readers for their wonderful comments and for making Grain Edit a frequent destination.
Inspiration from Vintage Ads - A few days ago I was working on a project that needed some Vintage Images, like old ads. I decided to look for them on the web, more precisely at Flickr.com. After like 5 hours I had found so many images that I had to stop or else I would spend the rest of my life viewing them.
The Serif : Vintage Design - Take a look at these vintage designs.
Totally Amazing Vintage Posters - Throughout my life I've been mesmerized by posters -- particularly those created by the Europeans of the mid-20th Century. These bold, graphic and inventive posters continue to captivate contemporary illustrators, and while many of us have liberally taken inspiration from iconic poster graphics, they pale in comparison to those created from 1930-1960 in France, Italy, Germany, Great Britain, and virtually every country on the European continent.
Vintage Design: European Graphic Design 1950 - 1970 - A nice selection of posters and other artwork from the golden ages (1950-1970) of European graphic design. And, of course, great design means great color… check out the inspiring work below, and click over to the original post for more.
Vintage Web Design Inspiration - Recently, I saw a very nice collection of vintage ads posted by Abduzeedo (via Digg). Speaking of vintage design, I also have a nice collection of vintage websites that I dug up from my old bookmarks and Best Web Gallery submissions. I’m not a big fan of vintage design, but if you want to see more vintage inspiration, here are 23+ sites.
Retro Vintage Graphic Design Tutorials
Adobe Photoshop Retro Vintage Design Tutorials
Adobe Illustrator Retro Vintage Design Tutorials
GIMP Retro Vintage Design Tutorials
Paint Shop Pro Retro Vintage Design Tutorials
Retro Vintage Design Inspiration
Best Graphic Design Career and Business Books - Ultimate List of Books for Freelancers & New Designers - I decided to compile a list of the best graphic design career and business books collected from reading people's favorites listed on forum posts and blogs. I came up with the following graphic design career and business books.
RECENT ARTICLES from Graphic Design BloG
Graphic Design, Book Covers, and You - Part II
Reading a Book by Its Cover
The chance to produce art for a book cover is rare, bug the essential thought processes and creative steps are very similar, if not identical, in the inventive process. In this series we actually try to read a book by its cover--to see if the design concept is successful or [...]
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Graphic Design, Book Covers, and You - Part I
Inspiration from the Covers of Books
In the next few posts, we'll look at some book covers and learn a few things about design. We'll find that design sometimes has to follow form. And in these examples, they follow the form of the content.
The creative processes used to design a book cover are relatively the same [...]
Freelancing 101: The Typical Life
Freelancing 101: The typical life.
Plus tips and advise from a professional.
By Elle Phillips
According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, about twenty-five percent of all Graphic Designers (or Graphic Artists) do freelance work, full-time or part-time. Many more have aspirations of doing freelance because of the money, creativity, and the appeal of working from home. [...]
When Design Becomes Literal
As a graphic artist, you face the challenge of creating designs that are unique, and interesting. Some designers, as you will see, have taken the idea of design to a very literal form.
The following examples are fun to look at and admire, but also serve as inspiration to think "inside the box" by approaching design [...]
Logos: What Makes a Good Design? - Part III
And Now the Good Stuff
In our last few articles about logo design we've seen some logos that didn't quite work because of design flaws, problems with concept or lack of visual appeal.
This time we'll look at some of the most famous logos in the world, and some that aren't so famous to see why they [...]
Logos: What Makes a Good Design? - Part II
The Logo Journey Continues
In our last article, we examined several logo designs that were, by most conventional standards, unsuccessful. Your art education is a continuing process and understanding the basics of graphic design can help you to be more effective in creativity and to avoid mistakes.
In Part 2 of this series, we'll take a look [...]
Logos: What Makes a Good Design? - Part I
Logo Design Isn't Always Easy
Designing a logo can sometimes be mystifying, but that doesn't mean it can't be done. At times a logo design just works, even though it may seem rather unremarkable. Other designs should work but they don't.
When Things Go Terribly Wrong
The examples in this article demonstrate what can happen when attention to [...]
All Graphic Design Resources is a Directory Full of Tools for Graphic Designers
All Graphic Design Portal is a Graphic Design education directory with resources & articles for Graphic Designers & Web Designers including a Design forum, blog, graphics software tips, graphic design jobs, advice for new designers about design schools and education as well as tips for freelance graphic design business owners, and much more.
