WellMedicated - Inspiration Overdose

For film nerds like myself, the Criterion Collection is the crème de la crème.  Every title in their incredible catalog is restored to pristine picture and sound quality and usually boasts some of the best bonus features out there.

But what is really seals the deal is Criterion’s gorgeous box art.  Every DVD in the Criterion Collection sports a completely original box art design.  They must have some of the best in-house designers working today as their DVD packaging just can’t be beat.  Needless to say, this makes it especially hard for the DVD collector to resist.

Here are 50 of my favorites…

Like many others I find myself captivated with vintage advertising.  There have been numerous articles, blog posts and websites dedicated to the subject and I just can’t seem to get enough.

Specifically, it is the advertising of the 50’s and 60’s that is most aesthetically pleasing to me.  It seems every ad in that era was either a beautifully shot photograph or a stunning Rockwellian painting.  Not to mention the incredible attention given to layout and typography.

The following are 50 of my personal favorites.  I hope you enjoy them.

The gig poster scene isn’t exactly the best kept secret among music fiends like myself.  It is a tradition that started in the 60’s and is still going strong.

Nowadays, the majority of indie bands have a growing collection of poster art that is just too incredible to simply throw away once the show has ended.  Not surprisingly, this has led to the gig poster being something of a collectors item for music fanatics everywhere.

The following are 50 hand picked gig posters whose creativity and imagination blew me away.

When I’m not geeking out over design you can probably find me geeking out over film.  I spent a good 7 years of my life working behind the counters of various video stores across Western Canada and consider myself an avid film nerd.

So it’s not surprisingly that my jaw nearly hit the floor when a coworker introduced me to the wonderful world of Polish film posters a couple of years ago.  These conceptual masterpieces put the original American posters to shame every time; they are truly beautiful works of art.  Trimming this list down to a mere 50 posters that I absolutely love was surprisingly difficult.

There has been a trend emerging in web design lately that is rather hard to miss: the use of blindly bright shades of red.

To me, this is a rather surprising and unexpected trend.  I would imagine designing with such colours would either require some monitor brightness tweaking or a constant flow of Tylenol to ward off emerging headaches.

That being said, these are certainly original,  eye catching and memorable designs that really stand out from the crowd – and that is one of the best advantages you could ask for.

With new design blogs launching left, right and center (present company included), being a self-taught designer is easier than ever.  It is thanks to these online resources, ideas and tutorials that our fingers are kept on the pulse of the design collective.

That being said, if I ever found myself stranded on a desert island and miraculously had access to 10 design blogs (you never know, it could happen), this would be them: