Spent a fantastic bank holiday with the family up at the East Anglian Railway Museum which is just outside Colchester, Essex. We were there for the Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends day!

This is a fantastic fully operational station with working museum. The museum buildings have been kept or restored back to their original state and there are hundreds of great examples of railway signage, posters and other collectible ephemera ranging from the early 1930’s and 1940’s.

Found these great examples of advertising that were exhibited in the main ticket hall. The visual impact of simple bold typography, the use of strong vivid solid colours and illustration are a great antidote to some of the over photoshopped examples we are bombarded with daily today.

Also great simple straightforward copy, “You can taste the fruit!”, “The mint with the hole”, “They’re new, They’re pepperint, They’re Spangles” Genius!

And here is the reason why we went in the first place. The phenomenon that is Thomas the Tank Engine!

An amazing amount of effort must have gone into this. The Beatles: RockBand trailer follows the beatles from their early material to breaking America and ultimate superstardom. The animation is amazing showing a great mix of both 2D & 3D, influenced by the continuous changing style of The Beatles music.

Produced by Jamie Hewlett the comic book artist, designer and co-creator of the Gorillaz. A must-see for Beatles fans and animation lovers.

Simply beautiful Transport for London posters for the 2012 Olympic Games. I don’t think that there is going to be as much controversy over these as there is over the Wolff Olins logo.

Some more information at ministryoftype and by the originator himself Alan Clarke

I stumbled across this site last week after reading Johnson Banks – Thought of the Week. Absolutely gorgeous book sleeve design from David Pearson. Before setting up his own agency he was an Art Director at Penguin Books. A must see and I think that I am going to have a hole in my wallet after a trip to Foyles this week!

Some exceptional work from Barcelona based graphic designer Alex Trochut. Amazing portfolio of illustration and typography based work for some of the worlds biggest brands. You may not know him but you will know his work.

If your having one of those brain ache days or just need a little helping hand with colour palettes then ColorBlender is a great little online tool. Simply input colour references from your design and hey presto a range of complimentary blends.

The great thing is you can save your blends for future use, output to photoshop & illustrator or even email the details. A really versatile free app that deserves much credit.

How cool would it be to wake up one morning to find that overnight your street had turned into a post apocalyptic nightmare! The scenes above were created by artist Edgar Mueller a remarkable master of 3D street painting. You’ll hardly believe your eyes!

One of the most amazing things for me is that they are produced in photoshop from start to finish. Go check it out!