Russian photographer Sergey Larenkov melds photos taken during World War II with photos he shoots himself from the same vantage point in locations around Berlin, Prague, Moscow and Vienna. The results are an extremely haunting juxtaposition of time and place. See full-size images via his blog. (via theo)
Some recent submissions to My Parents Were Awesome, a great blog where people submit photos of their parents being awesome. Soon to be a book, My Parents Were Awesome: Before Fanny Packs and Minivans, They Were People Too.
Designer Matt Stevens uses Pantone swatches to illustrate the past 17 years. So much brilliance in such a tiny space. I think Jobs and Dolly are my favorites. (via drawn)
Two bottles of 200-year-old champagne that were recovered from a shipwreck earlier this summer were uncorked and offered to 100 journalists and experts at a tasting at Finland’s island province of Aaland yesterday.
It wasn’t until they opened and recorked them yesterday that experts were able to confirm that there are 2 different labels of champagne: Veuve Clicquot and Juglar, a house that went out of business in the early 1800s.
It has lost most of its fizz, sadly, but retains its sweetness (champagnes at that time used a brain-freeze inducing 100 grams of sugar in each bottle; a bottle of Veuve today has 9 grams of sugar) and the flavor imparted by the oak casks it was kept in before bottling.
As the contents were poured into rows of waiting glasses, the aroma was more pungent than any modern wine or champagne: a thick, nose-wrinkling bouquet that could be smelled several metres away.
More at the History Blog.
Digging Kyle Bean’s mobile evolution Russian doll project. If you’re interested, Kyle makes many more incredible things out of a paper. (via bldg//wlf)
This image by Stefanie Posavec represents all of the sentences in On the Road by Jack Kerouac. Each line is organized according to the number of words per sentence, and the sentences are color-coded according to theme. This is only one of many killer infographics in Posavec’s Writing Without Words series in which she attempts to visually organize the language of books. Prints available. (via we find wildness)
I’ve been meaning to post this for a while ever since seeing it on Graphic Hug a while back but it kinda fell off the radar. Dazzle camouflage was a technique used during both WWI and WWII to obscure aspects war ships.
At first glance Dazzle seems unlikely camouflage, drawing attention to the ship rather than hiding it, but this technique was developed after the Allied Navies were unable to develop effective means to disguise ships in all weather.
Dazzle did not conceal the ship but made it difficult for the enemy to estimate its type, size, speed and heading. The idea was to disrupt the visual rangefinders used for naval artillery. Its purpose was confusion rather than concealment. An observer would find it difficult to know exactly whether the stern or the bow is in view; and it would be equally difficult to estimate whether the observed vessel is moving towards or away from the observer’s position.
RISD also has a super cool online gallery on the topic. Great stuff. On a related note, and from a different war, see also Quaker Guns. (via graphic hug)
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© 2010-2013 Christopher Jobson, all rights reserved, unless otherwise noted. I try my best to attribute images, videos, and quotes to their creators and original sources. If you see something on Colossal that's misattributed or you would like removed, please contact me. The Colossal logo and name Colossal are the trademarks of Christopher Jobson.
