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Olympic Posters Top 3

3. Stockholm 1912

The Olympic games were introduced in ancient Greece, inventor of democracy and nude male wrestling. This Swedish-designed poster clearly tries to reflect these noble traditions, but avoids the full frontal issue by tastefully wrapping a fun yellow ribbon around the flag waving athlete's penis. This added a whole new festive element to the games, which apparently was the last one to issue solid gold medals. Good times.

2. Mexico 1968

Sweden was still relevant some fifty years later when the Swedish pentathlete Jans-Gunnar Liljenwall became the first Olympic athlete to be disqualified because of doping; apparently he had “several beers” just prior to competing. One wonders why, when he could have just stared at the poster of the event for a couple of minutes to achieve the same effect.

1. Montreal 1976

Nothing says “Olympic games” more than a gay beaver, right? At least that seems to be the thinking of the Canadian Olympic Committee at the time. Of course the colours could represent the continents as they do in the olympic rings... but in the Olympic spirit of nude men wrestling I'm going to go with my ”gay beaver” interpretation anyway.

How's this for a fun fact though: Princess Anne of the United Kingdom (member of her country's equestrian team) was the only female competitor of these games not to submit to a sex test, introduced ten years earlier after the suspicion that several of the best women athletes from the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe were actually men. Gay old times.

Tv-resistori cover by Elina and Jaakko

Turku based pop group Tv-resistori is releasing their third LP in April. Yrjö commissioned me to make the cover art for their self titled release already in 2008 but then things like babies and solo projects happened among the group and the process was put on hold for over two years. I compiled the covers in January 2011 from various pencil drawings that I made with Jaakko Pallasvuo. / Elina

Jenni Rope: Cutters/Cork

Jenni Rope's art work will be part of the Cutters/Cork exhibition taking place in West Cork Art Centre, Ireland from February 5th to March 12th.

"Cutters/Cork has already being flagged by the Sunday Times newspaper as a 'must see' exhibition and is certainly one of the most exciting exhibitions at West Cork Art Centre in 2011. It is a showcase for the exhilarating and newly invigorated art form of collage. Featuring the work of more than 50 international artists and possibly up to 300 artworks, american artist James Gallagher has brought them all together in Cutters/Cork to illustrate the range and depth of collage taking place to today."

If you happen to be in Ireland, this is definitely worth seeing! Go Jenni!

Full list of the artists and more info: http://www.westcorkartscentre.com/

Terhi Ekebom / Comics-Art!

Terhi Ekebom made a stunning wall painting for Comics-Art! exhibition. Exhibition, located in Art Center Kasarmi/Tuusula Illustrative Art Museum, celebrates 100 years of Finnish comics.

Open till 22.5.2011, so there's plenty of time to see ;)

See how the painting was build from here. Photos from the opening party on Napa Agency's Flickr.

2011, the year of DIY

Looks like Napa Illustration's services won't be needed this year with calendars like this in the shops. Or should that be the other way around?

The cover artwork isn't setting the standards too high either. But aren't they missing a trick by not leaving it blank?

Ho ho ho!

Napa Illustrations wishes y'all a merry christmas, and an illustrative new year!