If you’re one of those people who loves to look at paper but not purchase it, this is the place for you. There is the Paper is Lovely tumblr site and the Lovely Paper Blog all by Dawn, a self-taught paper artist living in Texas. I originally found her thanks to @paperfinds on Twitter who linked to her Flickr feed, I nearly hyperventilated from exhilaration!

Sometimes I am amazed at the things that are available online. I recently found a site filled with tarot cards and some of the graphics, lettering and patterns are just stunning. TrionFi, History and Origin of Tarot is now a permanent bookmarked site and will continue to look – if you have LOTS of time on your hand – you too can browse through. Below I’ve put up some enticing images from their extensive library of images.

I really love the variety of illustrations, lettering and most of all the differences depicted from each country. There are several regions including Austria, Italy, France, Switzerland and much more.

I am just amazed and inspired by these and I’m not sure if it will have any influence on my work, but boy am I glad to have found it any way!

Remember the stylish uniforms of the 40′s and 50′s? Well finally, someone has created a collection based on those uniforms that is tasteful, stylish, and you would want to wear them. That someone is the stylish Mona & Holly from New York. I can probably assume that the research was not only inspiring but fun

The uniform inspired collection for 2009 was developed in homage to the buttoned-up aesthetic of “service” which has been modernized for the 21st century. Oh, and I just have to mention that I love that many of the pieces are elbow sleeves, I LOVE elbow sleeve lenth items.

Thanks to SimpleSong

I love this website called Shorpy featuring a collective of vintage photographs. I wonder why there isn’t an online archive of vintage graphic design.  The site would probably crash from so many onlookers. But Shorpy is filled with very unique photographs and is basically what the site says:

Shorpy.com | History in HD is a vintage photography blog featuring thousands of high-definition images from the 1850s to 1950s. The site is named after Shorpy Higginbotham, a teenage coal miner who lived 100 years ago.

Don’t miss the 4×5 Kodachromes, so beautiful!

First Class stamps

And I approve! A new set of stamps are going to be issued in January in honor of British design. They honor the Mini, Mini Skirt, Concorde, London Underground, Routemaster Bus and more!

First class stamps

All of the stamps will be available on royalmail.com/stamps and are scheduled to be released on Jan. 13 2009. Get your credit card and mouse-clicking finger ready! I have a feeling this will sell fast.

First seen on the Creative Review blog.

I haven’t decided which version to go with yet and I’m working on the stationery but how cool would business cards be die-cut with this this shape? So cool. And I think I have just the printer to do it.

A collection of envelopes photographed by Andrew Bush. No other explanation needed, right? Some nice specimens in there. I love the ones with die-cut flaps.

Cover

My favorite? Constructivism, my least favorite? Poetism. A nice page leading to a collection of Czech book covers.

Cover

alno

I love, love, love this kitchen from ALNO called the ALNO Plan in their Home collection. It’s simple, it’s modern and it looks like home. Yum. I love the floor tiles to the blackboard wall and on.

And I don’t think I need to say why I like this handsome devil below, natural cherry … enough said. Meet the ALNO Line Pro from the Lifestyle collection.

Alno Line Pro

Door Hangers

An interesting and inspiring collection of door hangers collected by Michael Lebowitz’s grandfather on his blog. Michael is the CEO of Big Spaceship a digital agency in New York. Michael’s grandfather had been in the foreign service and ended up filling his study with hotel door hangers from throughout the world. An interesting thing to collect over time and probably the only thing the hotel won’t end up charging to your credit card. I like to collect the keys (the plastic credit card kind since not many give out real keys any more).