Ever wake up one morning and say “today, I’m going to design my own banknote”? Of course, we all have. But earlier this week, I decided to act on that impulse. And just last night, I printed and laser cut my first batch of bytecoins at Metrix.

For those curious how the bytecoin compares to the (unrelated) bitcoin, I offer this handy chart:

The design of the bytecoin was influenced by colorful banknotes I’d seen in the past and some of the Dollar ReDe$ign Project winners. Some of my favorite banknotes are the Dutch Guilder, specifically, the late 60s/early 70s ƒ5, ƒ10, and ƒ25, and the early 80s ƒ50:

By the way, I hear if you’re looking to buy or sell bytecoins, you may find interested parties hanging out at Metrix Create:Space (not an official exchange). I’m sure they’d gladly accept bytecoins as tips.

Duncan and I made tshirts with the “phone company” logo on them (no actual phone company has this logo, but it looks a lot like the logo of some random independent phone company in the 1970s.

They were screen printed, but with a plastic stencil instead of a photo-process “stencil”. I bought a book of polypropylene sheets from Dick Blick (“suitable for water color”, the cover says), and got the stencil cut on the laser cutter at Metrix. They can’t cut vinyl or other chlorine-containing compounds, as deadly chlorine gas will be produced (though in quantities that would probably be more damaging to the laser than to humans), but polypropylene works great.

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.

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.

Haferflocken.

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.

Take Gastrin.

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.

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.