Vitsoe’s Tumblr

If you have a particularly sprawling design-book library, or if you religiously follow things like Mondo Blogo or Herman Miller editorial director Sam Grawe’s Instagram feed, you may be relatively familiar with the heaps of amazingly designed archival ephemera that original modern furniture brands tend to generate over the decades. But the rest of us still get giddy when we come upon a gem like Vitsoe’s brand-new Tumblr, which the 53-year-old German stalwart launched last month to show off rarely seen bits and bobs pulled from its company files. Every couple of days, staffers dig up old invitations, promo items, photographs, and catalogs and post them alongside a snippet of information about their origins; with Dieter Rams as Vitsoe’s lead designer and Wolfgang Schmidt behind its graphic identity, there’s been no shortage of eye candy on the site so far. A few of our favorite examples are shown here, but we advise you to bookmark the site and visit it often — we have a feeling the Vitsoe folks are just getting started, and there’s no telling what they might turn up once they really dig in. (All text below excerpted from the Vitsoe Tumblr.)

Top // 1968: Günther Kieser took time out from designing some of Germany’s most important jazz and rock posters to art-direct a series of enchanting photographs of our furniture. 1976: Colour has always been an important communication device for Vitsœ, whether it be in production, on office files or an envelope.1974: Formes Nouvelles sold Vitsœ furniture in France during the 1970s. The coloured shelves show Vitsœ’s brief flirtation with fashion.1974: ‘People of the year in the chair of the decade.’ Shortly after being granted copyright protection in the German Court, Niels Vitsœ was feeling justifiably proud of his 620 Chair Programme, which had been on the market for a decade.1971: Live performances at furniture showrooms were a growing trend in the 70s. In this instance, a record was pressed to give you a taste for the Sidewalk Hot Jazz Ochestra that would be playing on the night at Burger, in Karlsruhe.1989: At the height of his work for The Face and Arena, Neville Brody worked with Vitsœ to launch the 606 Universal Shelving System in the UK.