6 great photography galleries of railroad miniatures in real world settings

I love the little trend of setting up those tiny railroad set figures to look like they are interacting with the real world and then taking photos of them. I always dreamed of encountering mini people in my house after reading books like The Borrowers, and these photos evoke that sense of longing for something magical. I found 6 quality galleries from photographers on Flickr that have done this and am listing them here. Click the photos to go to that specific photo’s page, or click the link below them to see more by that particular photographer.
Miniature photography - Paparazza by Sim
From the set, Small World by Sim.
Miniature photography - Yellow by Erin-T
From photos tagged, Miniature By Erin-T.
Miniature photography - Orange by llama/PJ
From the set, The 365 Toy Project by llama/PJ. (Not a lot of this
style of photos in her set, but I just couldn’t resist posting this picture)
Miniature photography - Walkin' thru the park - by escapista
From the set, Groovy People by Escapista.

Miniature photography - Bad News by Shotbart

From the set, My Lilliput by Shotbart.
Miniature photography - Broccoli by Diastema
From the set, Toys by Diastema.

Tranquil Polaroid photography by VioletJulia

VioletJulia - Polaroid photography

Links to above photos: bird, trees, horse, pillows.

VioletJulia is an artist that takes amazing Polaroid photos. The compositions are minimal and go well with the muted colors of Polaroid film. I find myself more and more attracted to this Lo-fi style of photography. There’s something about it that creates a serene and dream-like atmosphere that makes the photos more human and less commercial.

Links:
Her Flickr
Her Website

Peter Lim designs

Peter Lim - Hybrid book design

Peter Lim’s graphic design portfolio is pretty small, but impressive. It’s one of those confusing flash based websites, so you’ll have to click on “Graphic Design”, and choose from the list of projects, then hover over the image and click on that arrow thing that appears to scroll through more photos of the project. I really like the above book cover design. The jacket is cut out to reveal the cork cover so that the book can serve as a coaster when it isn’t being read.

Typographic book to benefit Myanmar cyclone victims

Fifty Designers Current Favorite Typefaces - book to benefit victims of Myanmar cyclone

The people of Create/Reject have put together a design book that features the favorite typefaces from 50 of today’s top designers, and 100% percent of the profits goes toward UNICEF’s Myanmar Cyclone Children’s Appeal.

I bought one as soon as I heard about it. It looks like a fun book for type nerds and people who like to collect design books. In addition, the price was pretty low even with the overseas shipping. The fact that it goes toward a good cause was just icing on the cake. To see more, or purchase the book, click here.

Thanks to Swiss Legacy for the heads up.

Creative designs by Anita J

Anita J - creative poster designs

I love these designs made by Flickr user “Anita J+”. She used books to form the shapes of trees and flowers for these environmental awareness posters. The rest of her stuff is top notch as well, although I can’t find an official website besides her Flickr account.

Kato - Business cards

Kato - Business Cards

I love these business cards for Andre Kato. They are very bold while staying clean and minimal. It looks like they fit together to form a typographic design on the back. Unfortunately, I don’t read Portuguese so I don’t know much about them, other than how nice they look.

Richard Perez design

Richard Perez design - Kids don't know shit

I found some nice design work by Richard Perez. Looks like his site is under construction for now, but you can view his stuff on his Flickr account for now. I really love the way he experiments with shapes and colors.

I Want to be a Coal Miner - Vintage children’s book

I Want to be a Coal Miner - Vintage Children's book

I saw this vintage children’s book at a thrift store called, I Want to be a Coal Miner. I thought that was a strange aspiration for a child and I had to thumb through it. It turns out that although the story is boring and borderline propagandistic, the illustration style was amazing. I ended up buying it and scanning in some of the best pages to share them on Flickr.

The above photo is my favorite page in the book. I love the large amount of looming negative space above the silhouetted figures and the little trees are very pretty.

Click here for the rest of the set.

PS. Be sure to look for the little promotion of DDT, the now banned pesticide!)

Kuler and Flickr now work together

Kuler and Flickr - create color pallets from your photos

I find that when I choose color schemes for my designs I end up falling back to my favorite colors over and over again, so when I need variety I’ve been using Adobe’s Kuler to find color inspiration. I love the way it works with CS3 so easily, and it seems to be the least buggy web program for creating color schemes for me. They recently updated the program so that you can tie it together with your Flickr account and create color schemes based on your images, your favorites, or any other photo you want. I love this feature as a way of introducing a little bit of controlled randomness into my creative process. One thing I noticed though, is that I am seriously lacking in the area of colorful pictures in my Flickr account.

Typography Photography Vol. 3, 10 more great photos of found type

I’ve decided to establish a running feature on my blog that I will call “Typography Photography”. In this case, “Typography Photography” is defined as being a photo of typographic work in context. Of course, the type work and its environment must be interesting, but the actual photography must also be well done. This is kind of like the previous posts about found type photos I have done, but from now on I will try to write a little about each picture instead of just posting them.

Previously: {Vol. 2} and {Vol. 1}

Here’s 10 photos I’ve recently loved. Click on the images to be taken to their respective Flickr pages if you like them and want to leave a kind word to the photographers.

Typography Photography - Capri Lanes

Capri Lanes” is my current favorite of this bunch. The muted colors of the photo enhance the overall mood of the type. Everyone knows that sun damaged pastel look that reflects an almost sad memory of times when kids would rather play on bumper cars than play video games. I especially like that this is available in a size big enough to be my desktop wallpaper (which it currently is).

Typography Photography - Alaska

This is a photo of the word “Alaska” on an old railroad boxcar. The distressed white on the lush textured red is beautiful. I find it interesting how the washing out and fading evokes a strong sense of the effects of the elements on the paint, it’s quite fitting for the word Alaska.

Typography Photography - Amusements

Black and white was the perfect choice for this photo of the word “Amusements“. The text is laid out in a playful bold black letter type and each letter is bound in a white box. The photograph composition successfully plays off of the theme of black and white boxes through high contrast and creative cropping in order to complement the type treatment.

Typography Photography - I have great desire

The words say “I have great desire” and the fantastic title that the photographer gave the photo is “Me too, pal. Me too.” The choice to set this personal phrase in such an impersonal typeface as Helvetica is interesting to me. It creates a tension between the meaning of the words and the way they are displayed that gets the viewer to stop for a minute and really think about what it means to them. I love how the repetition of colors and lines tie the top and bottom half of the photo together without interrupting the generous negative space around the type.

Typography Photography - Distressed Type

This photo is called “Distressed Type“. The letters used to say “Ticket Office” but somehow most of them got knocked down and the others are struggling to stay upright. When type is made into 3-d objects they seem to take on little lives, as if they are puppets or stuffed animals. With their clean white appearance they seem like they have fallen far before their time. Call me a nerd, but I almost feel sad for these once proud letters.


Typography Photography - Is...

I’m not sure what the meaning is of this giant “is…“, but maybe that’s the point. What I really like about this photo is the contrast. The big, white, smooth, and curvy type really pops out from the small, brown, rough, and rectangular brick that is lies on. Also, I like seeing the way neon lighting tubes look in the daytime where you can see the curved tubes inside the letter forms.

Typography Photography - 1938

The rounded square shapes of the numbers for the address year the building was built, 1938, seem to echo the architecture of the building. The brilliance of this photograph lies in the way the blue sky is allowed to just peek in over the top of the building. The blue of the sky is almost exactly the same shade as the numbers and it balances the photo in an interesting way.

Typography Photography - Yoklubi

I don’t know what “Yƶklubi” means, but this image is still striking on a visual level. The rubbed texture of the distressed wood background and the twisted metal of the type and flourishes would normally scream grit and brawn, yet the flowing forms of the lines somehow create an overall elegant feel to the type installation. The detail in this photo is amazing.

Typography Photography - Create

The parking lot at Disney’s Epcot Center is telling us to “Create“. I love how they used a format that is typically telling us negative things like “STOP” and “NO PARKING” and wrote something positive and inspirational. The parking lines also make for a great photo composition.

Typography Photography - Fate sign

Finally, I really liked this photograph of a highway sign that points to the city of Fate, Texas. The name of the city is odd and makes for a surreal looking scene. It seems weird to be seeing such an abstract notion signed on a factual informational sign. The dusk backdrop, the leafless trees, the brown grass, and the view through the black dots of a tinted car window create a thick atmosphere and obvious mood. There is no question about the uneasy feeling that the word “fate” creates in this photo, and it’s a perfect example of how great photography can reinterpret typography.