Section Blog » cold war

The Forgotten Defenders

Paul — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:24:46 +0000

This was done for a little zine project that Jack Richardson is working on. The rules were it had to be on the themes of British, 50+(age) and three. Other limits were black and white only and had to fit on A5.

As I had already done the Vulcan stuff I’ve posted earlier, I immediatly knew I wanted to do the V Bombers. I started work on a kind of mash-up infographics poster but I got bogged down with it and felt really limited by the lack of colour. So in the end I played to my strengths and did a layout composition. Once I got going it was a lot of fun to make, although I spent most of my weekend on it – it definately was a change from making websites for clients.

I tried to recreate the style of some of those military adverts from the 50s, and if there’s one part I particularly like, it’s the mix of spaced out caps, then tighter italics underneith under the weapons.

Another Cold War design

Paul — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 23:00:16 +0000

One page of a design I’m working on for a friend’s zine. The themes are Britain, Three and 50+ Years Old, so I’m going for all three. I’m working on a second page.

Branding and Nuclear Deterrence

Paul — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 19:23:38 +0000

These are two things that really began to take effect in Britain in the 1950s. With the ending of rationing and the beginning of consumerism, companies began to take increasing care about their public image. At the same time, Europe was descending into the Cold War with Britain being caught in the middle between America and Soviet Russia. Due to America at first not wanting to hand over its new nuclear toys, Britain was forced to come up with its own nuclear deterrent. The answer became branded as the “V-Force” – three remarkable looking strategic nuclear bombers, deployed to protect our little island from the communist threat.

The fact they they still look amazingly futuristic today gives some idea how they must have seemed when they first appeared in the 1950s. To many people at the time, this was the iconic image of what a bomber looked like:

Now imagine how people must have felt when this came screaming over their heads:

At that time they were painted in bright white too, to reflect some of the heat from a nuclear detonation, with the familiar red white and blue roundels lightened to pink and baby blue to stop roundel shaped holes being burnt into the aircraft.

I think mindset of the men who flew these white behemoths is fascinating. Set on alert, awaiting the order for a counter-strike, knowing they probably didn’t have a great chance of survival, and even if they lived, who knew the horrors that awaited them back home. Sitting in their huge planes, looking out of tiny windows, carrying a nuclear missile so big it had to be strapped to the outside.

Anyway enough of the history lesson, there were some designy things that inspired me to write this. I came across the Flight Global archive which has scans of their old issues throughout the century, including adverts. I’m not sure entirely who they were aimed at, but I love combination of early British modernist graphic design and modernist aircraft design, plus the whole idea of branding a nuclear delivery system designed to kill millions of people. Here’s a few of my favourites: