Gorgeous Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Skiing

A rare marriage of sports and fashion through mid-century graphic design.

As a devotee of winter sports, both as a lifelong practitioner and an Olympic spectator, and lover of vintage graphic design, especially mid-century travel posters, I was delighted to chance upon The Art of Skiing: Vintage Posters from the Golden Age of Winter Sport (public library) — a remarkable collection of 800 vintage posters and paintings from the first half of the twentieth century when skiing, a sport that immigrant Scandinavian gold miners had introduced to America during the Gold Rush a century earlier, first took the world by blizzard as a fashionable modern sport. Curated by vintage ephemera enthusiast Jenny de Gex, these gorgeous and graphically striking posters were obsessively and lovingly amassed over a lifetime by Mason Beekley, owner of the world’s largest private collection of ski art. They are currently housed at the Mammoth Ski Museum in — surprisingly — California.

For a wholly different application of a similar vintage aesthetic, pair The Art of Skiing with these lovely vintage posters for libraries and reading.

Donating = Loving

Bringing you (ad-free) Brain Pickings takes hundreds of hours each month. If you find any joy and stimulation here, please consider becoming a Supporting Member with a recurring monthly donation of your choosing, between a cup of tea and a good dinner.

♥ $7 / month♥ $3 / month♥ $10 / month♥ $25 / month

You can also become a one-time patron with a single donation in any amount.

Brain Pickings has a free weekly newsletter. It comes out on Sundays and offers the week’s best articles. Here’s what to expect. Like? Sign up.

Duper Bowl: Alternative Super Bowl Logos

What if’s, football for nerds, and how the artsy types do organized sports.

There’s no question the Super Bowl is quite the garish spectacle. The tipping point of a year’s worth of football adrenaline, the obscene amounts of food, the $3-million-for-30-seconds commercials. And like any garish affair, the Super Bowl always has a garish logo to match.

But this year, The New York Times decided to explore the what-if’s of Super Bowl logo design by inviting some of the country’s most prominent designers to reimagine the logo. The resulting collection of Alternative Super Bowl Logos spans the entire spectrum of conceptual and creative vision — the modern, the retro, the grunge, the minimalistic, the serious, the tongue-in-cheek, and everything in between.

There’s the political parody…

…and the retro-minimalist iconography, our favorite.

Then we have the delightful play of color…

…and the blatant side-taking.

The rebellious grunge…

…and the hilarious nerd-centric audience expansion scheme.

The refreshing back-to-basicness of the football illiterati…

…and, of course, the inevitable tribute to the American Way of marking any occasion as worthy.

And if you, like us, didn’t quite realize what a big deal the Super Bowl logo was, go ahead and realize — The New York Times has proof.

via Creativity Online

Oh, Conan

Life rule #387: always do as Conan says.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Apparently, late-night comedy doesn’t pay enough.

Bottoms up, kids.

Power to the People

Because nothing spoils the national pastime like a grumpy old man in plaid.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Yeah, yeah. There may be a bit of product placement going on here. (Gee, ya think?) But these days, this seems to be the price tag on good entertainment — and that’s what we’re getting here.

Two of MLB’s top power sluggers. A driving range. Grumpy old men in plaid. Mad long balls. Can it get any better?

“Somebody oughta call somebody.” You said it, old dude.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .