People’s Graphic Design Archive

Powerhouse Collection

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 15:41:49 +0000

Powerhouse is custodian to more than half a million objects of national and international significance. The Powerhouse Collection is considered one of the finest and most diverse collections in the world.

It includes the Powerhouse Archives comprised of hundreds of Collected Archives and the Powerhouse Institutional Archives, which date from 1880.

Blueboy Magazine

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 09:35:39 +0000

Blueboy magazine was an American gay men's publication that ran from 1974 to 2007. Often compared to Playboy for a gay audience, it combined erotic photography with articles on culture, entertainment, politics, and LGBTQ issues. During its peak in the 1970s and 1980s, Blueboy played an important role in representing gay life and culture, helping to increase visibility and provide a platform for LGBTQ voices during a period of significant social change.

Return to Forever lettering

Thu, 04 Jun 2026 03:16:12 +0000

Lettering by Gerard Huerta for the band Return to Forever

From Heurta's Facebook post: This was a trace-down tissue for the back cover of an album. What is most significant is the musicians: Al DiMeola, Stanley Clarke, Lenny White, Chick Corea…..What a super group.

AC/DC lettering

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:38:44 +0000

Lettering by Gerard Huerta for the band AC/DC (held by the artist).

Gerard Huerta is responsible for lettering on many major albums, publications and beyond.

This photo was taken while on shooting the interview of Huerta for Graphic Means.

Collection of lettering by Gerard Huerta

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:31:27 +0000

Gerard Huerta is a skilled lettering designer and illustrator. He shares his work on his own website, but also on Facebook where he shares great stories about the work. Huerta has worked on major album covers, publications, and more.

Folklore and Legends of our Country Pictorial Map

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:24:58 +0000

Frank Soltesz, Folklore and Legends of Our Country, 1960 (dated).

This pictorial map titled Folklore and Legends of Our Country was created for the Esso Standard Oil Company (now Exxon Mobile) in 1960. Housed in an 8.5 x 9.25 envelope, the set includes a richly illustrated 24 x 35 1/2" map of the United States, featuring folklore and legends, along with inset maps of Alaska and Hawaii designed and illustrated by Frank Soltesz.

This edition was distributed by the Public Relations Department and the Educational Programming Department of Esso Standard. The company's goal was 'to stimulate interest in and exploration of folk history'. The reverse side Treasuries of America presents content that is educational in nature: a pictorial map promotes 'field trips' to see America along the East Coast and parts of the Southeast, while additional information and reading lists of books featuring American folklore and legends encourage further learning.

Pleasure To Burn Camel Cigarette Tin

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:23:44 +0000

Antique Persian Pictorial Bakshaish Rug

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:23:06 +0000

The Persian Bakshaish rug, crafted near Tabriz in northwest Persia around 1910, displays figures from Persian history. Its central lion symbolizes royalty, a common theme in Persian art of that time.

The rug's design plays with scale in an interesting way, using size to emphasize the importance of the figures. The central figure, larger than the rest, suggests higher social status and is decorated with a badge of state and a dragon motif. Above the king's head, there is Persian writing. The rug's lack of perspective makes all figures easily visible. These artistic choices underline the rug's cultural significance and the skill of its creators.

More than just a historical piece, this rug fits well in both traditional and modern settings. It serves as an excellent example of how historical designs can be adapted for contemporary use.

Flagsmith

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:22:23 +0000

Flagsmith is a flag-building typeface. Using OpenType, words are transformed into shapes and patterns that can be mixed and layered to create a custom flag. There are over 100 shapes and 1,000 alternates that can be combined to create a sea of unique flags.

A creative collaboration between:
Scribble Tone (now known as Vectro)
Always With Honor.

Please Enjoy... Neon Installation by Jeppe Hein, ARoS Aarhus

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:20:49 +0000

This photograph captures a section of the contemporary neon installation titled "Please Enjoy..." by Danish artist Jeppe Hein, photographed during his solo exhibition In Is the Outside at the ARoS Aarhus Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark, in 2016. The artwork consists of a large wall-mounted white neon text hidden behind a one-way mirror, superimposing a dense list of behavioral commands directly over the viewer's reflection.

The installation relies entirely on a stark, minimalist typographic layout utilizing all-caps, white sans-serif neon lettering. The typographic layout strips away standard punctuation and spacing hierarchy, forcing a rapid, continuous stream of text. By taking a clean, institutional typographic style and using it to broadcast inherently contradictory, rebellious, and playful directives, the design cleverly subverts standard museum wayfinding and rule-setting graphics.

This artifact is a brilliant example of subverting institutional authority through environmental graphics. It parodies the typical "rules of conduct" signage found in public galleries and museums. By transforming rigid, bureaucratic instructional text into an interactive, participatory experience, the graphic design actively challenges the traditional, passive role of the museum visitor and transforms the public space into a playground of social interaction.

Haleʻiwa Town Welcome Sign

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:20:24 +0000

This environmental graphic captures the world-famous "Welcome to Haleʻiwa" roadside sign located at the entrance of the historic surf town on the North Shore of Oʻahu, Hawaiʻi. Originally commissioned by the North Shore Chamber of Commerce in 1996 and updated to its current iteration in June 2006, this sign has transcended its utilitarian function as a wayfinding marker to become an iconic monument of Hawaiian surf culture and a legendary destination photo-op for global tourism.

The artifact carries a layered history in graphic preservation, originally designed by artist Carole Beller featuring a male surfer, experiencing a decade of community-led restoration efforts against heavy vandalism, and eventually pivoting to the "Surf Girl" design in 2006. This sign is a triumph of local character over institutional standardization. By bypassing standard federal highway fonts and layouts, the city created a visual gateway that acts as a psychological marker, signaling to travelers that they are entering a unique, culturally protected historic district.

Fish Den Tropical & Marine, Denver

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:19:51 +0000

This photograph captures the original, freestanding outdoor commercial signage for Fish Den, a specialty tropical and marine aquarium shop located in Denver, Colorado. Having retained its original storefront branding since the 1970s, this artifact serves as an excellent, preserved example of late-20th-century American commercial vernacular design.

The sign relies on high-impact, high-contrast bold graphics designed for maximum legibility from a passing vehicle.

This sign is a wonderful example of independent retail branding from the 1970s before corporate franchising and digital vinyl printing standardized the American roadside. It demonstrates how bold, graphic simplicity can give a small business a timeless and memorable visual identity.

Art Deco Stone-Relief Signage: Bar Pasticceria Piccioli, Florence

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:19:19 +0000

This photograph captures the historic storefront environmental signage for Bar Pasticceria Piccioli (located at Via degli Alfani, 86r) in Florence, Italy. The large, relief-carved capital letters reading "BAR PASTICCERIA PRODUZIONE PROPRIA" are integrated into the stone storefront framing. This architectural artifact is highly characteristic of the Art Deco and Stile Liberty (Italian Art Nouveau) crossover period that dominated Italian municipal and commercial design from the 1920s through the 1940s.

This sign is a well-preserved example of vernacular commercial lettering used as a structural element of urban Italian architecture. It reflects a pre-standardization era when a city's commercial visual identity was defined by permanent, high-craft masonry rather than mass-produced fixtures.

Crossroads Street Signage in Santa Barbara, California, USA

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 23:18:58 +0000

This photograph captures the custom 1960's street signage at the intersection of Laguna Street and Plaza Rubio in Santa Barbara, California. Unlike the standardized, highly regulated federal highway typefaces found across most of the United States, Santa Barbara’s historic districts utilize a unique, hand-painted typographic style that is deeply tied to the city’s regional charm and architectural heritage.

The letterforms feature a distinctive sans-serif construction with high crossbars, organic curves, and subtly flared stroke endings that bridge the gap between the Arts and Crafts movement and early 20th-century geometric deco styles. Inscribed on dark brown planks, the white, stylized lettering mirrors the romanticized, historic aesthetic mandated by the city's post-1925 earthquake rebuilding efforts.

This artifact serves as an excellent example of vernacular typography and environmental graphic design being leveraged to cultivate a specific "sense of place." It demonstrates how local municipal design can bypass federal standardization to preserve community identity and visual texture in the public sphere.

Lavender Menace tshirt

Wed, 03 Jun 2026 22:07:14 +0000

Betty Friedan, author of the feminist classic “The Feminine Mystique,” and leader of NOW in 1969 (National Organization of Women), began to distance the organization from lesbian causes, describing that the “man-hating” members of NOW would hinder progress and detract from the feminist movement.

When planning for the national conference, she excluded the lesbian activist group The Daughters of Bilitis from the list of sponsors of the First Congress To Unite Women in 1969. She denounced them as the “lavender menace.”

As a result, a group of activists, including Rita Mae Brown and Barbara Love and other members of the Gay Liberation Front, intervened in the meeting wearing “Lavender Menace” shirts with stenciled type.

(image from Lesbian Herstory Archives)

This is the Way We Wash the Clothes

Tue, 26 May 2026 00:53:47 +0000

The image is an advertisement for Sunlight Soap and the original was a piece that was exhibited in the Royal Academy London created by G.D Leslie. The original was not an advertisement for Sunlight Soap like the one in the image is, as the rights for it was later acquired by William Lever to adapt it as an advertisement. It shows an old fashioned mindset of how women were expected to do things like housework from childhood.