Authentic Mid-Century Paint Colors

Here's a handy little cheat sheet for mid-century paint colors: a 1953 color card from O'Brien paint.

The brochure reads:

Use this NEW 1953 "COLOR CARD" in your planning
You'll head the style parade with these beautiful new colors — selected by leading authorities to make your choice easier!

Colors of the Year—
Ever year O'Brien presents a new palette of selected Colors of the Year. This "card" shows some of these for 1953. Use it in your planning. Then see actual full-page swatches of all 114, in the New Manual at your dealer's!

It's a nice companion piece to the list authentic mid-century exterior paint colors.

Mid-Century Address Numbers

Sometimes you wait too long to start a project. I had finally decided on which mid-century address numbers I was going to use for our place.

I was planning on creating custom Eichler-style address numbers with these metal stencil numbers:

But the one store carried them, or anything like them, has discontinued the line. So now it's back to the drawing board.

Vintage Austin Postcards

As I continue to look for inspiration for mid-century design and astetics, I keep finding little diamond mines in unexpected places. Today's diamond in the rough is Austin Postcard, which has a large collection of vintage postcards from Austin.

You can go way back and see postcards and photos from Austin before the Great Depression. Or you can check out what mid-century Austin looked like. For example, you can look up some pretty neat postcards and photos of the old Mueller Airport. Like this one:

For those of you not from Austin, The Mueller Airport (pronounced Miller though half of Austin pronounces it like Bueller with an M) was opened in 1936. The fantastic-looking tower and terminal you see in the photo were added in 1961. Mueller airport closed in 1999 and is now home to a mixed-used community. Plans are to keep the tower.

Good Design: Stories from Herman Miller

My wife and I hit up the Herman Miller exhibit at the Austin Museum of Art recently. If you're a big fan of mid-century furniture and/or Herman Miller it's worth the price of admission, but don't go in with huge expectations. You probably won't see anything that you haven't seen in your favorite vintage store or mid-century modern furniture store.

Being a copywriter in TX, the agency I work at is filled with some of the pieces on display, and there I get to sit on them. But there is a lot of interesting information. My wife, who owns a graphic design studio in Austin particularly liked learning more about the history of Herman Miller advertising and the evolution of the Herman Miller logo.

Mid-Century Landmarks: Monona Terrace

During my trip to the midwest we stopped my alma mater in Madison, WI and walked around campus and downtown. Madison is home to a few Frank Lloyd Wright buildings. I actually lived right behind the Robert M. Lamp house for a year. But the most famous Wright building in Madison is the Monona Terrace. It's a wonderful building to spend some time in/on.

All photos and this blurb from from The Monona Terrace website.

Frank Lloyd Wright originally proposed a design for the Monona Terrace Community Convention Center in 1938. His architectural vision for the City of Madison – a curvilinear gathering place that would link the shore of Lake Monona to the State Capitol – has now been realized. With interiors redesigned by Taliesin architect Tony Puttnam, Monona Terrace spans ninety feet out over shimmering waters, incorporating thoroughly modern technology and amenities with the architect´s signature organic design.