1960s | Shelby White - The blog of artist, visual designer and entrepreneur Shelby White.

Archive for the ‘1960s’ Category

Swiss Utopia

April 27th, 2010

When I think of Switzerland, I think of it as this wonderful place to travel to. A lot of that has to do with my feelings toward Swiss design and my prior perceptions of the country based on movies or reading.

As I came across these images I couldn’t help but notice just how amazing each image looks in both a stylistic and compositional sense. I also came across these other photos in the same flickr stream that had that same 60’s/70’s film look that we’ve all come to love, but I don’t believe they are all from Switzerland.

Images via Post-Utópica.

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50s & 60s Interior Design

April 22nd, 2010

Some great images of 1950’s and 1960’s interior design. I think its safe to say that the light and color of these images are probably making it look much better than it may look in person. Regardless, I love the wood tables and walls. Can’t forget the illustration of the Eames chair–the best seat in the house.

Images via Mid Century Home Style and FFFFound.

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Mid-Century Modern Inspiration Pt 2

April 7th, 2010

More inspiration from the Mid-Century Modern Art & Design Flickr pool. I would love to find out what cameras were used to take these images–if you know anything, please share.

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The Colors of Mid-Century Modern

April 7th, 2010

Image courtesy of Retrorenovation.com

There is always something stunning about coming across gems like these two mid-century color palettes. While they may not be the most attractive images, they certainly have helped me nail down that ever-so-unique mid-century vibe. I’m most drawn to the Siliconized High Gloss and Color Varnish sets.

You can see some other examples of these colors in use here and here.

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The work of Peter Seitz

March 25th, 2010

These pieces were created in the 1960’s by the graphic design pioneer Peter Seitz. It seems to me that Seitz’s work revolves a lot around forms (triangle, circle, square, line etc.). My favorite is the urban/regional studies institute piece. It uses an expressive intersection of shapes that really draws my eye in.

Images via Walker Art & Ryan Gerald.

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Rosen Residence by Craig Ellwood

March 19th, 2010

The Rosen Residence was designed by Craig Ellwood Associates for Gerald and Arlene Rosen. The house was constructed in West Los Angeles during the 1960’s. I really like the wood meets modern aesthetic throughout the house. Check out the Eames lounger and ottoman sitting in front of the old style piano.

Via the Mid-Century Modern Interiors pool.

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Wilt Chamberlain House On The Hill

March 12th, 2010

Until now I had never heard of Wilt Chamberlain the NBA basketball player or this enormous house. After reading a few articles about the house, the most interesting thing aside from the architecture and interior was that it has a groovy feel to it.

“Built in 1971, the five-bedroom, 7,158-square-foot contemporary-style house at 15216 Antelo Place in Bel-Air was built by Chamberlain, who lived there until his death in 1999. TV writers George Meyer and Maria Semple purchased the house from Chamberlain’s estate in 2002 for nearly $3 million, and have owned it ever since. The house has attracted much attention over the years–both with this listing and in 2000-2002, when Chamberlain’s estate was trying to unload it, first for $7.45 million and later reducing its asking price to $4.38 million. The house’s unconventional features include a gold-lined hot tub, a retractable mirrored ceiling above the master bed, a swimming pool that flows into the living room, walls of glass, 40-foot ceilings, a wrap-around pool, and a balcony suspended over the living room. Other features include five and a half baths and teak finishes.

The house sits on a 2.58-acre parcel that has ocean and city views.”

Source Mid Century Architecture

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Behind the Expo 67 Logo

March 2nd, 2010

The 1967 world fair in Montreal, Canada was held together by one unifying object–the Expo 67 logo. Quite possibly it is one of the most cleanly executed and memorable World Fair logo’s to date. The combination of the timeless icon combined with beautifully kerned type (set in the Optima Roman typeface), really unified the core ideas behind Expo 67.

The theme of this World Fair was ‘Man and his World’. Every pavilion in one way or another, represents this theme of man to the world around him. The designer responsible for this logo was Julien Hébert, a Canadian industrial designer. At the soul of this logo is Hébert’s conceptual use of an ancient sign representing man–vertical line with arms outstretched to either side–close in proximity to represent friendship. The symbol representing man is repeated in a circle, extending the conceptual representation of unity of mankind around the world.

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Mid-Century Modern Flickr Pool

February 23rd, 2010

It’s a wonderful feeling to look back at older art & design. This particular group of images, sourced from a pool on Flickr called Mid-Century Modern Art & Design, are just a few of many that I really enjoyed.

Don’t let the great image of the Sands Motel fool you. Maybe at one point in its life it was an oasis but now, its far from it. I included this image because of my personal recollection of the motel and also because I wasn’t aware that the Sands Motels existed anywhere but in downtown Boise, Idaho. In the image above it looks gorgeous and like it was the hot spot. That certainly wasn’t the case in Boise back in 2002.

The Sands Motel as I knew it, was a trashy, run-down motel where drug deals and prostitutes went down. The sheets of the beds had burn holes, the knob of the sink came off to the touch and fell down the sink (whoops), and lastly the TV. My brother and I were little and of course wanted to watch some TV (more than likely to get our minds off the fact that this motel was sketchy) so our dad hardwired the TV back into working order because someone had cut the wires off the back of it for some unknown reason. On top of that I believe that when our dad went into the lobby to get a room, the guy was sleeping in his chair with his arms falling back to each side and his head tilted over the back of the chair, looking like he was dead. If this wasn’t an indication that we shouldn’t stay here, then I don’t know what was.