Here's some color inspiration by way of Florida tourism brochures from the 1950's. This great collection was put together by newhousedesign and can be found here on flickr.

Inspiration from classic sci-fi novels... these classic tales of alter universes and predictions of future societies were always accompanied by some really great art and color palettes. Thanks to levar for putting together this great gallery of scans from his personal collection.

Designboom brought my attention to this great flickr set and biography of design legend Erik Nitsche (1908-1998) whose "genius encompasses virtually the entire sphere of visual communications. Nitsche's prodigious and globe-straddling career, spanning nearly 60 years, included art direction, book design, typography, illustration, photography, film, signage, exhibits, packaging, industrial design, corporate design, and advertising."

"If Nitsche’s name is unfamiliar to some who pride themselves on being knowledgeable about the history of graphic design, this can only be attributed to Nitsche’s reluctance to court publicity and to his belief that his work should speak for itself. In an essay about the designer in the late 1950s, P. K. Thomajan wrote, “Self-effacement, [Nitsche] finds, keeps the blighting shadow of the ego out of one’s work." - The Art Directors Club”

Eric Nitsche may not be as well known today as his contemporaries, Lester Beall, Paul Rand, or Saul Bass, but he is their equal. Almost 90 years old, this Swiss born graphic designer is arguably one of the last surviving Modern design pioneers. Although he never claimed to be either a progenitor or follower of any dogma, philosophy, or style other than his own intuition, the work that earned him induction last year into the New York Art Director’s Club Hall of Fame, including the total identity for General Dynamics Corporation from 1955 to 1965 and the series of scientific, music, and world history illustrated books, which he designed and packaged during the 1960s and 1970s, fits squarely into the Modernist tradition... continue reading at typotheque

Color inspirations by way of advertisements from the 50's and 60's.

Many of these great ads were selected from an inspiring post by the design blog WellMedicated and the others from flickr. Image source links can be found by clicking on the images themselves.

Kashiwa Sato is a Japanese art director that is anything but afraid of color. Of all his creative work, which has been for companies such as UNIQLO, docomo, and the list goes on and on, his site might be the most colorful of all. At its core, the site is minimal, but in a way that might make your head explode after an extended period of surfing. The site, created by Yugo Nakamura, includes an unique color navigation system that uses animated color palettes made up of colors that were used on the projects themselves. This system is not only visually impressive but gives a good sense of his creative aesthetic as well.

Color inspiration by way of Brazilian album covers from the 60's and 70's during the popular Bossa nova movement.

This selection of album covers is part of a larger collection on the site sabadabada which recently celebrated its four year anniversary. sabadabada is run by Peter who has been collection records from Brazil for over 15 years.

"My reasons for building this site were simple. I set out to build the site that I wished somebody else had built before I started collecting. I wanted to post some information, without opinion or commentary, and to share some of the music that I thought was worth collecting."

Color inspiration from some recent stamp designs. Two series by graphic designer Gavin Potenza entitled 'A Field Guide to: the Stamps of the World' and 'Homage to the Stamp'. Along with a New Zealand heritage collection of the alphabet of cultural icons.

AtoZ of New Zealand

Here's some color inspiration from vintage record sleeves collected by artist Kavel Rafferty, who has some nice work of her own as well. This collection takes us through a selection of sleeves from some of the most prominent international record companies of the time, and gives us an idea of their focus on design even behind the album cover...

No other color in modern history has carried such gravitas when it comes to associations with masculinity, femininity and politics. The color pink a vessel for weighty subject material, indeed. Especially when you consider the fact that it has only been around in its proper form for less than 500 years. Who knows what the future for this light shade of red will hold, but this info graphic created by Voltage Creative covers the last hundred years of politics and pop culture in all things pink.

Click to scroll the full graphic.

Since the first self adhesive stamp (the Penny Black, made in 1840 featuring the bust of Queen Victoria) stamp designs have been one of the most highly visible designs in society, one that is particularly important since it represents the nation it comes from.

Today we are featuring some stamps from around the world that you will probably never come across, and if you did you would be quite happy because of their value, along with info about the history of stamp design.

The most common types of stamp designs are Portrait bust, Emblem, Numeric, or Pictorial.

Color & Stamps

Although multi-color printing was always possible, and may be seen on the earliest stamps of Switzerland, the process was slow and expensive, and most stamps were in one or two colors until the 1960s.

World's Most Valuable Stamps

Post Office Mauritius, 1847 It is estimated that fewer than 30 individual copies of these stamps have survived and they are valued at between $600,000 or more depending on the condition of the particular stamp being sold. In 1993 a cover bearing 2 of these stamps sold for a whopping $3.8 million, the highest price ever paid any philatelic item.

Sweden Three Skilling Banco, Yellow Color Error, 1855 The three skilling stamp (yellow color error) was issued in Sweden in 1855. Due to a printing error, this stamp is printed on yellow colored paper (meant for the eight skilling stamp of the same set) instead of the usual green color (used for the three skilling stamp). One copy of the yellow error variety of this stamp was found in 1885 by a young Swedish boy in his grandfather's collection.It is a one-of -a- kind rarity, as no other copies have been discovered to date. In 1996 the stamp was sold to an anonymous collector for $2.3 million at auction.

U.S. Franklin Z-Grill, 1867 This stamp is the rarest of all U.S. stamps, as only 2 copies are known to exist. These stamps depict a portrait of Benjamin Franklin and are embossed with a "Z-Grill" - being a pattern of tiny squares embossed into the paper and visible on the back of the stamps. The purpose of the "Z-Grill" was to permit the canceling ink to be absorbed into the stamp paper thus preventing those who wanted to cheat the post from washing out cancellation marks.The use of "Z-Grills" was not found to be practical and the practice was soon discontinued. An 1868 1 cent "Z-Grill" stamp sold for $930,000 in 1988.