Soda Signs. I just about crashed my car when I saw this last night. I’ve been photographing out-of-the-way places for seven years now this month, but this is the first time I’ve seen such amazingly preserved signage. At first I thought this stuff might have been new/restored, but as a friend pointed out, this wasn’t really the neighborhood for that sort of thing. I’m not a big fan of Coca-Cola signage, as I’ve mentioned before, but this sign is in great shape. I’ve seen places that have curved bottlecap signs like this before, though they’ve always been under layers of paint. I’m glad to finally see them. The only type of Coke sign I know I’m missing now is the once-ubiquitous “fishtail”, seen in a Stephen Shore photo of Philadelphia, and on “Sal & Angie’s” in the movie French Connection.

Electric Green. After photographing the store above, I turned right onto MLK Way (a day before the holiday, incidentally), and followed the street for awhile, looking at the progress of the light rail line (looks mostly done here). Near the Henderson Street station, I noticed a strip of green curling up into the hills. I could see an asphalt bike path weaving its way through the green, so I decided to pull over and go for a walk. As it turns out, this is a strip of land underneath a Seattle City Light transmission line, called Chief Sealth Trail. I followed about 2.5 miles of the line, first southeast, where I stopped at the Creston-Nelson Substation (complete with an electrical plug safety sculpture). I then followed it back northwest, past MLK Way, up to near Holly Park, and back to my car (for what turns out to be about a 5-mile round trip). It was really a great sight in the setting sun, especially with Rainier set beautifully against the pylons.

I had the pleasure of visiting the Goodridge (Minnesota) Historical Society yesterday, and I came across this beautiful butter box. Daisies are quite popular imagery with dairy products, especially butter. My favorite is a packaging company’s sample imagery for “Best Butter” (not a real product). Now, I’m sure the Goodridge butter packaging wasn’t made specifically for that creamery. It looks like the brand name would have just been stamped in the happy puffy cloud near the daisies. Still, I love seeing that small enterprises could actually have things that had good design, and it’s nice to see any sort of product that came from such a small town.

Orange Crush. On a walk down Bellevue Ave this sunny afternoon, I saw this Orange Crush bottle caked with mud and sitting in a flower box outside an apartment building. It feels a bit weird picking up something that seems like it can’t be that old, yet the graphic design is quite a few generations old. I’ve encountered this particular design before, at the Orange Crush laundromat, though I wouldn’t have guessed that design would have shown up on a bottle that seems so (relatively) recent. Such a bottle occupies a particular space in time — it’s a round 16oz glass bottle, with a styrofoam label, a UPC, and no Nutrition Facts or other nutrition info. I sort of know these bottles as ones I might have occasionally gotten as a kid — but by the time I was buying many sodas, they were in plastic bottles, save for Jolt, which kept the 16oz glass bottles a little longer. Before these chubby nonreturnable bottles, there were the returnable bottles with the pry-off tops. I vaguely remember a bottle vending machine at the ASCS office in Warren. While Orange Crush comes in 20oz/600ml plastic bottles like everything else now, it’s come full circle and is available in 12oz glass bottles with the other “speciality” sodas (along with some other revived brands like Bubble Up and Dad’s).

I’m In Print! I was recently featured in the mnartists.org newsletter. That same feature will be partially reproduced in the mnartists quarterly arts supplement in The Rake, which hits the street April 30. There may be some more publicity coming in the near future, but I’ll hold off on that until I have a firm date for things.

New Site. I’ve started a new site, using a name I’ve held for awhile, oddmart.com. I have a few notes on books: the How to Show Telephone Numbers On Letterheads booklet by Ladislav Sutnar and Asmara: Africa’s Secret Modernist City, as well as a couple that originally appeared this site. On oddmart I’ll also be selling some of the import-only graphic design books, as well as some reprints of out-of-copyright design books.

Balkan Foods. At a Balkan market in Fargo, I found a few pieces of Extant Design that have a definite Soviet air to them. The Zlatni Puder evokes memories of lots of late East German graphic design (which I mentioned previously here in Extant DDR). They’re particularly enjoyable because it seems most post-Soviet packaging design has been thoroughly Westernized, usually with the latest swoosh-twist-3D-glow effects.

Soviet-era Design Books. I love the book SED: Stunning Eastern Design and its miniature half-clone DDR Design, and now I’ve discovered a newer, bigger book on DDR (East German) design, called DDR Design (unrelated to the other DDR Design above), by Günter Höhne (English-language info here). It’s in German only, but lots of large color pictures make it a great piece of extant design porn nonetheless. In the same series as DDR Design, but by different authors are DDR Kochbuch (DDR Cookbook), DDR Backbuch (DDR Baking Book), and DDR Getränkebuch (DDR Drink Book). They’re in German only, and more text-heavy, but design freaks, and English-speakers who care to translate recipes to attain some weak sense of Ostalgia might still get from them some enjoyment.

Everlasting Inventory. Not just a good synonym for Extant Design, Everlasting Inventory / Permanentny Remanent, is a book on “promotional graphic design in the Polish People’s Republic” that I’m anxiously awaiting. My credit card has been charged 123.99 złoty, and I think an email may have told me that my order has shipped. In the same series is Not Only the Poster / Nie Tylko Plakat, on “promotional graphic design in Poland between the wars”. The website Reklamowy oldschool shows a number of “oldschool” Polish ads. I’d like to find more postwar graphic design from other trans-Iron Curtain states, but the closest I’ve otherwise found is the pre-WWII-era Obraztsy graficheskogo dizaina / Образцы графического дизайна (Graphic Design Samples), from Russia.

Shinola, Postum, Pizzaroma. Last summer I spent some time in the Hamre House at the Pennington County Historical Society’s Pioneer Village, photographing the packaging in the kitchen, pantry, and bathroom. Products range from the fairly recent Pizzaroma to Malted Milk Powder that looks as though it may have accompanied Shackleton or Scott to Antarctica.

Faded Signs on Glass. From Gilby, ND, the ghost of the Red Owl. I think the Owl was gobbled up around 1990 by Supervalu (which just recently swallowed up Albertson’s as well). Long-gone Supervalu logos can be found in Karlstad (also here).

Tea? On a rare sunny Seattle afternoon, I snapped this. It’s a Lipton sign with the same sort of lettering as for Salada tea in Gardenton, Manitoba. I remember “Salada” being on the windows of a northern Michigan gas station in a John Bellairs book. Thanks to Amazon, I’m reminded that it was Gert Bigger’s store: “Bigger’s Grocery Store was surrounded on three sides by a dark forest of pines. The store was just a white frame house with a plate glass window in the front. Through the window you could see rows of stacked groceries and a cash register and counter in the rear. Some green letters on the window had once spelled SALADA, but now they just said ADA.” Apparently remembering the smallest details from a book one read at age twelve is no obstacle to finding a complete reference within seconds.

Hellenic, Wild Soon to be covered by Seattle condos, a jumbled mess of Hellenic Wide painted on brick.

Something to Drink. I shot some more soda signs to slurp on. It’s always fun to find ones that have loomed over you and you’ve never noticed, like the Sprite sign below. The Diet-Rite is on a bench in front of the Birchwood Cafe in Minneapolis. I’d been meaning to get that one for a long time, and when I finally did, I discovered that Williams Food & Video (which was later to reveal Orange Crush on one side and Cliquot Club on the other side is now the Clicquot Club Cafe. I actually spotted the Dad’s below on a Star Tribune article on the impending sale of Joseph’s Market in west St Paul. Finally, there’s Royal Crown Cola sign at the “Public Food Market”. That’s not THE market in Seattle, mind you, just a corner store
apparently closed but not yet emptied of goods. Peer through the windows in the next feature below.

Public Food. From what I can tell, this little corner store (the Public Food Market, see the sign immediately above) was closed. I checked it for a few days and there seemed to be no change, yet there was still food sitting on the shelves. Press your face up to the glass and see what you can see.

Ostpaket. After a long and grueling trip through Deutsche Post and DHL (which are not yet, unfortunately, a completely merged organization), my Ostpaket has arrived. The Westpaket was a care package sent from the West to East, before the fall of the Berlin wall. Even though the miracles of capitalism and western brands have returned to eastern Germany, some DDR brands are still alive and well. This is useful for those with Ostalgie or for people like myself who just enjoy outdated graphic design. This Weizenin cake flour has some of the best examples of Extant Design: it’s rather simple design, sparse text, a product image, and a flat color background. The blue-on-white seems to be quite popular in extant design. See, especially, Marshmallow Fluff and Jiffy Mix.

Extant Delicacies. From the shores beyond the continental US, I bring you three new pieces of Extant Design. In a gourmet grocery in the Pike Place Market, I found Celles sur Belle butter. In a Hispanic market also in the Market, I found Goya Flan. And from a British import shop somewhere in downtown-Seattle-office-complex-ville, it’s Tunnock’s Tea Cakes.

Extant DDR. The particular circumstances of the DDR (Deutsche Demokratische Republik, or East Germany) meant little focus on marketing and little attention on design. Even before the fall of the Berlin Wall, some of this design began to be recognized. The show Design in der DDR in Stuttgart in 1988 was perhaps the first recognition of extant design. Taschen puts out two books (with nearly the same content) of some of these Wall-era products: the smaller but newer DDR Design and the larger SED: Stunning Eastern Design. If you’re looking for more instant DDR gratification, the website DDR Alltagskultur (Everyday DDR Culture) provides images for an amazingly wide (and still growing) list of East German products. The site is in German, but language skills are not necessary to enjoy the design, just scroll down in the lefthand frame. Language skills may be needed to enjoy all of the books on their Buchtip(p)s pages. I plan on purchasing one or two in the hopes that they’ll include plenty of color pictures. Finally, a key to the images: on the left is the East German Club-Cola (now available again [de] for those with Ostalgie). On the right is the modern (but still very Extant) Pepsi Schwip Schwap[de] (a German cola/orange drink, not unlike OK Soda). Poor Schwip Schwap seems to be heavily outmarketed [de] by Coca-Cola’s Mezzo Mix [de].

The Legacy of a Label.The image on the left is a Durkee’s Mayonnaise label in 1957. The image on the right is a Durkee’s Mayonnaise label in Japan in 2000. As you can see, very little has changed in 43 years. There are so many things to love about that label, Extant Design-wise, from the plain white space to the very odd font to the gold foil with blue grid label. The label on the right is courtesy Sue’s Mayomania (in Japanese, but once again, you can enjoy pictures even without the language — you will, however, have to click randomly). While Durkee’s Mayonnaise has long since disappeared from the US market, it was still being made for export to Japan. Sadly, the Durkee’s brand seems to have disappeared and has been replaced with Lightship instead.

A Fresh Helping of Extant Design from Seattle. Rcent grocery store explorations in Seattle have netted me a new batch of products with Extant Design. Some have come from one particular Safeway, others from corner stores. Neither, strangely, came from my local QFC, or earlier, the Safeway that I frequented. Some of these products are easily found in this area, while others are, I think, fairly unique finds. I’ve also added some explanations about Extant Design, and I’ve created thumbnails to help browse the ever-growing gallery.

Packaging. I’ve slaved over a hot scanner for *you*. Check out old product packaging from the 50s and 60s, including some background on the classic Extant packaging, Jiffy (then|now). Also included is some sample packaging (no such product actually existed) for a daisy-themed muttarbargerine, a bit like the Nucoa below.

Seattle Sign Slides. On August 14th, I shot some of the signs of Seattle on a roll of Kodachrome. The film was sent to the last Kodachrome processing center in the world, in Dalandzadgad, Outer Mongolia. They tell me the film makes a torturous trek by bus, mule, and bicycle to a little photomat in a mud hut on the edge of this Gobi Desert town. OK, maybe it wasn’t quite that bad, but from what I understand, Kodachrome processing is only done by a few places, one in Kansas and one in Switzerland. I was under the impression that Fuji sent film to Kansas and Kodak to Switzerland. I used Kodak, but it hardly seems like it took long enough to go to Switzerland and back. I shot on two Seattle streets, Lake City Way and Ranier Ave. Lake City Way had a definite ‘highway town’ sort of feel and Ranier was more of an aging urban neighborhood, but both had some nice signage of similar vintage.

Plus de margarine. At a grocery store in Greenwood, I found yet another example of Extant Design, and, quelle surprise, it’s a margarbutterine. I’m amazed at how one particular foodstuff can defy design updates for so long. Are people fiercely loyal to their margarine/butter that no amount of flashy packing could lure them away? Are people such disengaged butter/margarine consumers that they just grab the closest thing on the shelf? Has anyone on the entire planet besides me noticed this? If so, do they care?