Design...luscious graphic design. Vintage Science Posters & Megan Lee

I love looking at beautiful things. Don't you? :) This first offering is from The Modernist Nerd

The intersection of science and design has many beautiful manifestations, from data visualization to nerd tattoos. But hardly does it get more delightful than in these gorgeous vintage science and technology ads from magazines in the 1950s and 1960s, bringing the modernist aesthetic to the atomic and space ages.

Here are a couple of offerings. I like the one about copper. Can you imagine the ad designer pondering how to make copper interesting? He did it.

And aluminum?

Soviet Propaganda Posters, while the content was objectionable to Americans back in the day, the design was stellar. I've written about them before, relating the history behind the popular UK war propaganda poster "Keep Calm and Carry On" and some other perfectly gorgeous posters as examples.

Here is a page dedicated to Soviet Posters.

The BBC did an article last year looking at 6 of the most recognizable vintage Soviet cosmonaut posters with explanations as to the history behind them.



Noel Bagley at Aetherworks (love the beauteous home page!!) found some modern vintage science posters by Megan Lee at her etsy shop. VISIT Megan Lee! Her designs are incredibly beautiful!

Niels Bohr was a 1922 Nobel winner for advancing our understanding of quantum physics and the structure of the atom.

Look, just LOOK at Megan's scientist postcards!

Rock Star Scientists posters. Fibonacci! Mandelbrot! My faves!

And planet stationery! This woman can design beautiful things!

Ahhh, gorgeous.

My heart beeps for kids

In the science center at the pre-kindergarten class in which I work, there is a pair of stethoscopes. My bruiser boy who has a voice like a foghorn and stomps around the class like he is on a football field, unexpectedly loved the science center, slowing down enough to examine the shells and the microscope and kaleidoscope and all the other minute things. When he got to the stethoscopes, he joyfully held them up and said, "Hey! These are for listening to heart-beeps!"