'80s Travel-Themed Nursery Posters

Gallery 1988: Venice has a collection of new work by Tom Whalen & Dave Perillo: Around the World in an 80's Daze. The theme of the show is locations of '80s movies and TV shows done in the style of vintage travel posters.

Any of the posters would be perfect for an '80s kid setting up a travel-themed nursery for their own kid.

Many of the posters have sold out already, but some are still available at Gallery 1988's store.

Mid-Century Modern Art Memory Game

We have the Alexander Girard memory game, which I thought was the best memory game out there. But, if I had known about the Modern Art memory game, I might have bought it instead. I love Girard, but modern art, on little tiles, that my kids can play with and memorize — there's something very appealing about that.

The Mid-Century Toys of Growing by Design

The MoMA is really firing on all cylinders lately. Not only did they recently pick up the Frank Lloyd Wright Collection, but they have the Century of the Child: Growing by Design, 1900-2000 exhibit currently running. And their website is showcasing some outstanding mid-century modern design and mid-century toys, including (of course) LEGO and the Eero Aarnio Puppy.

And they have a they have a little video about some of the cutest toys I've ever seen: The toys of Libuše Niklová.

If you happen to be in New York, you can check out these and many other cute mid-century kid things in person. Lucky.

Mid-Century Modern Home Image Solved

I love my readers. And I love that they oftentimes know more about mid-century stuff than me.

Yesterday I posted about a mysterious mid-century modern home image that I loved and that same day, not only had a reader tracked it down, but they pointed me to a Flickr set with all of the images in the series, which everyone should check out. Much like the mystery image, if I saw any of these homes in real life, I'd have to move in.

The image I saw is actually a cropped version, this is considered the full one:

Although, the cropped image is wider than the full – you see the full chair on the right and more of the wall unit – so there might be an even larger version out there.

I guessed right, it's an ad for an electronics company, Motorola to be specific. They were ads to highlight Motorola's products: radios and their new 19-inch, black-and-white TV. The ads were paired with the tagline, “Fresh from Motorola... new leader in the lively art of electronics.” They were produced in 1961 and the art was done by Charles Schridde.

According to the Business Insider:

Schridde was a painter that loved depicting the Wild West, but he had previously done automotive ad work. He was assigned the Motorola account while working at New Center Studios in Detroit after winning an in-house contest to depict "a neat place to watch TV."

A neat place to watch TV; that's quite an understatement.

Mysterious Mid-Century Modern Home Image

I happened upon this image not too long ago and instantly feel in love with it, but I have no idea where it's from or what it's for. It could be an ad for a mid-century modern electronics company (the TV and radio are pretty spotlighted), a home builder or any other number of things.

Whatever it's for, I love it for the following reasons:

• The TV inside what looks like a free-standing fireplace. If you love mid-century homes and atomic ranches as much as me, you're bound to see your share of free-standing fireplaces. This is the first time I've seen anything like this TV holder.
• The chairs that are actually a built-in bench. If you look quickly at the woman sitting, it looks like she's in a yellow chair. But if you take an extra second, you notice she's actually sitting on a bench build into the half wall with chair cushions attached at the top.
• The curved brick wall. Itself the wall it just pretty, but with the faux free-standing fireplace in front of it, it harkens back to when families sat around the fireplace. This modern home and family just being the modern-day example of that classic scene.
• The wall unit on the right. I've never seen a unit like that before.
• The impractical, circular white shag area rug. It this wasn't a drawing, the would have to have build it into the room: Lay down tile, lay down rug, install TV stand. Unless the cool TV stand isn't built in, but those old TVs were heavy so it would probably have to be. Once it got dirty, and white shag would get dirty with a kid that age in the house, they'd have to cut it out of the room, even though it's just an area rug.
• The white cocktail tables with handles. Easy to move around the room and a perfect compliment to the white circular shag rug.
• The chair on the right. It looks a lot like a Petal chair, but a little less crazy.

If I ever see a house with a room like this in real life, I might have to live there.