WPA retro icons

[vilakins]

In a Mad Men episode we saw last week, a client referred disparagingly to some four-colour posters as outdated WPA. I was interested enough to look it up and it stands for Works Progress Administration, a New Deal agency employing a lot of people during the depression, including artists who did posters, some examples of which can be seen here. I couldn't resist making icons out of some of them. Want, take, credit.

Most text was added by me.

First up are some art icons, in case anyone wants one for naarmamo.


Music, maths, reading, languages


Classics


Flora


City and outdoors.


The rest including two gratuitous Doctor Who ones and a Pennsylvania Dutch couple. The last one reminds me of the anime film Steam Boy.

Comments

[trixieleitz]

Thanks for sharing - very interesting, and they make great icons, too :)

The syphilis posters are intriguingly Orwellian. Department of Correction, blimey.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Many could almost be Soviet posters.

Syphilis seems to have been a huge problem judging by the number of posters. The gas mask is from one with solid little workers below it marching in step against this scourge.

[san-valentine.livejournal.com]

Oh, those are so lovely.

I've taken the first Art one, and the Summer one, and will credit, thanks.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The swimmers? I love that one! Excellent choices.

[bramblyhedge.livejournal.com]

Oooh, retro cool, I like it. :D Though I can see how they'd look horribly dated by the 1960s.

(LOL @ mummy?)

Incidently, isn't Mad Men a great show! I've only been able to catch one episode so far, but was very impressed.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I've seen three or four now, and it's excellent. I love the graphics in the opening credits.

[kerravonsen]

I love the "Trojan Incident" one. And grin at the "mummy?" ones.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

The Trojan one was advertising a play; very cool. I also like the classical faces next to it. I couldn't resist the mummy ones. I think I prefer the blue lettering.

If I had the space, I'd have kept a few of these. I'm still very tempted by the summer swimmers.

[kalypso-v.livejournal.com]

Gosh, they're gorgeous. Just shows how short of taste most of Sterling Cooper's clients are.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Well, he certainly was (the MD or whatever of Bethlehem Steel).
[Edit] This (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pantufla/287326138/in/set-1477614/) incidentally was very similar in style to the ads he was offered: cities built with steel with the text "New York [or other city]: brought to you by Bethlehem Steel" or, much better, "Oh little town of Bethlehem".

I liked the posters in the program enough to find out more. I love what they did with so few colours. I've seen some lovely modern versions here in the last few years. Maybe I'll have a go at the technique during naarmamo next month.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

Thanks for pointing these out; they're wonderful. I think my favorite was the Dinosaur Syphilis one. Truly surreal.

Did you notice this one on Languages? I thought it might be handy for you.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/pantufla/248670905/in/set-1477614/

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I did, after I'd done the others. I was going to add it to the icons and forgot. I should do that now. As for me, I use my chocolate icons for languages, and I filled up my last space. I should have a cull.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

The chocolate ones are nice, but the other one is new and shiny. :^)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Done. I might offer it on linguaphiles.

[entropy-house.livejournal.com]

That's a good idea!

[jaxomsride.livejournal.com]

They are great I love posters from that era.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

So do I! I was delighted to find so many.

[astrogirl2.livejournal.com]

These are really cool!

I think we still have a few sidewalks here where I live with WPA and a date in the 30s carved into them.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Cool! We didn't have anything like that, but the old stone walls in the park (one of which we had wedding photos by) were built by prisoners in 19C.

[vjezkova.livejournal.com]

Thank you, you know your job!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

:-D

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

These are absolutely beautiful!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

I love that style! I ended up taking the swimming one.

As a linguist, you might like the languages one I just added. :-)

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

It is nice, though I have an odd personal aversion to yellow. Objectively, though, it's really well done.

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's my main objection too. :-) I use this one fro languages.

[lizamanynames.livejournal.com]

I've always loved that one...

[acanthaster.livejournal.com]

These are so cool! I love your selections and what you've done with them. (The dino syphilis one is great too. Ha!)

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

Thank you!

It is (nice phallic neck, yes!), but the framing didn't suit the square icon format. There were also several I rejected after playing with them because they didn't look as good as I'd thought at 100x100.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Oh, these are lovely. May gank some icons when I can decide which; I've already bookmarked the Flickr set. Thanks for the headsup!

[vilakins.livejournal.com]

No probs! Want, take, credit. :-)