70s matchbox art

This is a collection of artwork from assorted 1970s matchboxes. I got them from a flea market in Krakow along with some amazing Russian cigarette cards which I'll be posting shortly. The playfulness, the confidence, the cheeky appropriation (spot the nod to A Clockwork Orange) all make you remember why you wanted to become a designer in the first place. These little sleeves exude the sheer joy of mark making.

UPDATE: I thought at first that these were Polish matchbox sleeves, but I've since been informed that they are a mixture of Czech, Icelandic and maybe more (if anybody recognises any other countries please let me know).

World Cup 74 Book by Willy Fleckhaus

On this blog I'd like to showcase things that haven't been seen too often, so as much as I'm tempted to run some pages from Twen, that particular magazine has featured prominently in design histories and websites of late. I've never seen this book reproduced anywhere before though. It's a World Cup 1974 review by Twen's wonderful art director Willy Fleckhaus, and I recognised his tell-tale style as soon as I flicked through the pages in the charity shop where I found it. All the Twen touches are present: dramatic juxtapositions of foreground and horizon line shots; an echo of that in the narrow and wide type column measures (six column rather than Twen's twelve); and of course that marvelously playful logo, which is shown here on the dustcover, and in its debossed form on the cloth-bound cover. A great find.

Tales of Horror double cassette

Okay, first let's state the obvious: the typography was never going to win any awards, and the Illustration is just comical – I've never seen a tamer pair of rats than the two menacing that bandaged hand. But for all that something made me pick up this twin cassette pack, and then buy it, despite not having owned a tape player for some years. Why? Partly nostalgia for a certain strain of naive and lurid packaging I suppose, but also because, for all its naivety, this box has an excellent feel to it. The heft is just right, the cases are firmly attached to the outer, and the whole thing opens and falls flat in a most satisfying manner. Having handled some music packaging recently where the design was fine but the materials were sadly lacking, this little case reinforced how important such decisions are. I think that observation is sufficient to qualify 'Tales of Horror' as inspirational.