Arne Jacobsen for your office

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Spring is officially here in Scandinavia, a good time to enjoy something new (or old). Warm colors, international design and clean lines are all trademarks of Danish designer and architect Arne Jacobsen. If you are in the process or remodeling or thinking about it here are some personal favorites of mine available to buy from Hivemodern.com. Enjoy!

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Arne Jacobsen

Arne Jacobsen Egg chair (1958) from hivemodern.com

Arne Jacobsen Series 3300 sofa (1958) from hivemodern.com

Arne Jacobsen Oxford chair (1963) from hivemodern.com

Does your airline offer this?

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More airline retro goodness from a TWA commercial made in the early 1970s. Looks cheesy but still delicious in some odd way.

Attention all customers

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I am not only interested in vintage design, architecture, lounge music and umm... stewardesses but also graphic design and typography seeing it has been my major subject in college and what what I work with for a living in a way. One thing that caught my attention lately are those old handwritten posters and placates that were found in major stores and outlets. Handwritten of course, they were in their own way a work of art. Done correctly they would both look elegant and selling. Of course, the effect would be the opposite if they were done the wrong way. Here are a couple of nice examples taken from a book about how to learn the quick lettering technique used for signs and billboards. Now grab your pens and start practicing.

Swank just got swankier

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As you might have noticed, some things has changed here at Ultra Swank. Felt that a design update was long overdue, seeing that the blog has looked the same for over two years. So said and done here is the new, improved, better, bigger and even more swizzle cool version of Ultra Swank! Since it is still being tweaked on, there might be some bugs here and there. But do not worry - they will all be taken care of in time. If you notice anything really strange, feel free to let me know by using the new contact form available on the top right side.

Other changes are the additions of a few banners from Google. My intention with this blog has and never will be to make money from it. But seeing that a lot of people do visit it nowadays, I thought I would see if I could break even with some of the expenses I have. Still experimenting with the ads, so expect to see some minor changes here and there over the next weeks.

I also set up a PayPal account which you can donate money to if you feel like giving something back to me, that is if you like the subjects I write about or the music compilations I share. My plan is to save any donations I might receive to partly fund some traveling later this year. Have been given a few invitations to visit some of the readers of this blog, who knows - maybe I will get a chance to meet some of you in person? :)

Fly Eastern

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Here in Sweden we just skipped spring, summer and autumn and went directly back to winter again, so why not take a trip to the sun with Eastern Airlines? Here are six one-minute vintage commercials with none other than Brazilian bossa legend Astrud Gilberto on vocals. The jingles were recorded in the late 1960s and styled in different variations. Taken from a promotion 7" record intended for their employees only, but now offered to the Ultra Swank readers as well.

"The soaring spirit of the New Eastern...the lyrical beauty of an aircraft in flight...the exalted triumph of man's conquest of the skies - all these have been joyously captured in the melodies on this record. Created especially to serve as background music for Eastern television and radio commercials, these exhilarating musical passages stand on their own as a memorable tonal tribute to the new freedom mankind has achieved through modern aviation."

1. "Fly Eastern" Theme
2. "Number One to the Sun"
3. "After Business Hours"
4. "Sunrise at San Juan"
5. "Miami Cocktail Lounge"
6. "Song for Sun-Worshippers"

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Via Megaupload

Fly the friendly skies

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Remember what is was like before Southwest Airlines? Well, I don't. But it looks all good to me. Here are two early 1970s ads from the Dallas based airline Southwest and Miami based National Airlines. Both rather sexist, created to attract the attention of male passengers using tightly fitted outfits on the stewardesses along with broadcast and print campaigns suggesting that you could "fly" a stewardess to your destination of choice. Good times indeed.

Milkbar

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Swedish filmmakers Terese Mörnvik and Ewa Einhorn team up with Fredrik Gertten from WG Film in Malmö to bring you a documentary about a place where time has stood still for the past decades. Born from a concept of the communist past, Poland once had over 25 000 Milkbar's to serve cheap traditional food for families, old and homeless people. Once run and owned by the Polish government, now privately operated only 140 bars remain. Danuta Dzius is the owner of Bar Bywalec . This is a story how she tries to keep the bygone times alive, with the liberal market knocking on her front door. "Why can't there be Milkbar's all over the world?" she says, and how right she is.

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Buy Milkbar on DVD

Shopping Spree - Part 7

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We haven't visited the golden age of shopping for a while, so why not take a waltz down the aisles once again. This time we are focusing on the Swedish department store chain Domus (house in latin). It was owned by the Consumer Corporation (KF) who in their glory days had over 200 stores throughout the country. Sadly, business was slowly beginning to come to a halt in the 1980s and many of the bigger stores were redeveloped to mini malls or sold. Personally I think that the Domus stores still are the coolest stores ever to exist and Sweden and I miss them in a silly - but kitschy way.

For those who are interested in learning more about Domus, there is a great documentary by Swedish filmmaker Anders Wahlgren available.

Related posts
Shopping Spree - Part 1
Shopping Spree - Part 2
Shopping Spree - Part 3
Shopping Spree - Part 4
Shopping Spree - Part 5
Shopping Spree - Part 6

Domus store, unknown location, Sweden, early 1960s


Domus store, Örebro, Sweden, late 1960s


Domus store, Halmstad, Sweden, early 1980s


Domus store, Kiruna, Sweden, early 1970s