In case readers of this blog are not aware, our main gig in life is running a design studio called Chopping Block and a (mostly) t-shirts shop called Chop Shop. In an effort to increase the amount of awesome design featuring space exploration, we have been posting the work of other artists here and now we have decided to officially join the ranks by releasing some of space related work of our very own starting with our A Good Idea tshirt.

Friend of the Chop, Matthew Borgatti, made this cosmonaut lamp a while back and it made it’s way around the web as clever things often do. We asked Matthew to convert it into a drawing so we could display his concept on chests the world over. The title is a play on a famous graphic design slogan, “design is a good idea”. Our point-of-view is that space exploration is a good idea as well.

By the way, yes… it does glow in the dark.

Contained within Justinvg’s excellent poster set on flickr are these gorgeous posters celebrating early Soviet triumphs in space. There are 5 total; Sputnik, Sputnik 2, The Luna Program, Vostock and Voskhod. But if you are a fan of Star Wars — don’t miss his fictional travel poster series (which are also included in the same set as these Soviet ones).

Eric Zelinski had an unusual inspiration to redesign 4 chapters of a classic educational book; Time Life Science Library’s Man and Space. The edition was first printed in 1964 and contained some very basic info-graphics on various space travel themes of the era. Keep in mind that this is pre-Apollo — so some of the items were conceptually unproven, but based upon generally accepted models of that time.

Seen above is “Ways to Go” which presents 3 different ways that NASA was actually considering for getting a man to the surface of the moon and back. Judging from the upstanding rockets seen in diagram #1 and #2, I think #3 is closer to the method that prevailed.

A diagram of the way back home.

A bit of more general information on the local environment around earth.

See also Eric’s submissions to the t-shirt giant Threadless. Many are space themed and his current submission is “Us Divided” which features a cosmic Earth split in two. It is now available for voting, so why not show some support?

I had really always thought it would be so cool to do a poster set with great design for each of the planets. I actually started a design for the Cassini at Saturn mission, but have yet to complete it. Sure enough someone comes along and knocks the whole system out in one fantastic series. Beat me to it!

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Admit it, deep down inside we (or at least I) all secretly want to explore the heavens untethered from the Earth and unlock all the mysteries of the universe. Perhaps that is why the beautiful info-graphic art of Michael Paukner is so appealing. His work focuses on many scientific themes such as space exploration, as seen in this poster of the Solar System as it is known today (above), to more conspiratorial “junk science” theories like numerology, the Doomsday Planet (follows the link) and that crazy Aztec calendar that ends in 2012.

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Beautiful set of posters by Simon Page. There are 10 total. See them all here.

The site good.is has this great section called “Transparency” where they illustrate complex and hard to understand topics. Check out this magnificent chart of all the probes that NASA has sent past Earth orbit.

This is so nice, but I am furious that I didn’t get to design this. This is Information design at it’s best naturally by National Geographic. You can see 50 years of robotic planetary exploration at a glance. It even includes failed missions represented by darker desaturated lines. As far as I can tell the cream colored lines are US and the red ones are Soviet. Interesting to see how many of those lines go dark around Mars.

Now where does one purchase such a thing? Perhaps this month’s issue of NG? Here is the link to it on their site complete with zoom viewer and them some kind samaritan posted a hires version to flickr.

Not as long ago as 40 years ago, but just a little over 10 years ago – The Chopping Block adopted the look of NASA for one of our online incarnations. More specific our adopted look embraced the era of Apollo in hopes that a little of that former astro-glory might rub off on our small New York graphic design studio which was at that time only about a year old. So we thought it appropriate on this 40th anniversary of the touchdown at Tranquility Base, that we revisit our own journey through cyberspace and our small tribute to the historic landmark that is Apollo. (more…)

If happen to come to own one of these bad boys from the late 60’s early 70’s you are going to need this owners manual. The original owners of these models rarely have this on-hand. If you are in the market, beware of any models from the 13 line since that model had a well-known faulty oxygen tank that is likely to scrub any potential trips to the Lunar surface you may have planned. Get it from Haynes online.

Apparently the people at NASA have discovered a graphic designer. Early reports say that there may be more of them and suspect there may even be some that use Photoshop.

The Chopping Block has finally entered the blogosphere. I am Tom on there. I am represented by a robot and write much sillier stuff there than I do here. See blog.choppingblock.com now and forever.

Not that I am for Pluto inclusion in the planetary family… I just keep running into these references to the Plutonian contreversy.

A nice page on the Oliebollen site that offers a “Pluto Fan Club” to kids and adults who care enough to step up to bat for the little dwarf. The protest culminates in a Facebook page where you can join other dissenting opinions online. There is also this children’s activity for a Solar System mobile which I have seen first-hand.

I always see this graphic on my machine and only ever posted it as art on a tee for redbubble.com. Here it is so pretty enough for you to eat.