Help me geekify my office with posters!
June 29, 2010 6:56 AM Subscribe
Help me geekify my office with posters!
I have had a job as a web developer and IT assistant for just over a year. I have a nice little cube/office space, but the wallpaper is hideous and I would like to cover it up with things that are awesome. That's where you come in. Please suggest to me your favorite posters, prints or art! It would be best if it were geeky and interesting enough to bring people in to look at it and ask questions about it.
I've looked at Think Geek, Etsy and various poster sites but had a hard time coming up with something I liked. Really, I thought it would be much easier to find posters like this but I've had a difficult time. Most of what I come up looks like this, which I find kind of overdone and cheesy.
Our favorite geeky topics in the department include anything Adobe, Android, Google, Windows, social media or related to the Internet or web development in general. I also have a background as a graphic designer, so anything about basic design or typography would be welcome. No Apple, please.
I like things that are well-designed and retro styles are especially fun. Cheaper is better. It needs to be a readily available poster, too. I don't have the time or money to go out and have things printed myself, unfortunately.
Thanks in advance!
I have had a job as a web developer and IT assistant for just over a year. I have a nice little cube/office space, but the wallpaper is hideous and I would like to cover it up with things that are awesome. That's where you come in. Please suggest to me your favorite posters, prints or art! It would be best if it were geeky and interesting enough to bring people in to look at it and ask questions about it.
I've looked at Think Geek, Etsy and various poster sites but had a hard time coming up with something I liked. Really, I thought it would be much easier to find posters like this but I've had a difficult time. Most of what I come up looks like this, which I find kind of overdone and cheesy.
Our favorite geeky topics in the department include anything Adobe, Android, Google, Windows, social media or related to the Internet or web development in general. I also have a background as a graphic designer, so anything about basic design or typography would be welcome. No Apple, please.
I like things that are well-designed and retro styles are especially fun. Cheaper is better. It needs to be a readily available poster, too. I don't have the time or money to go out and have things printed myself, unfortunately.
Thanks in advance!
I love the posters at Madame Talbot's, and they are certainly in a retro style.
posted by TrarNoir at 7:00 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by TrarNoir at 7:00 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: Check out Brandon Bird. His paintings touch on a lot of Internet / social media topics.
posted by Diskeater at 7:04 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by Diskeater at 7:04 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: Retro style time travel posters!
posted by CarolynG at 7:09 AM on June 29, 2010 [3 favorites]
posted by CarolynG at 7:09 AM on June 29, 2010 [3 favorites]
Have you ever seen The IT Crowd? They have a lot of very geeky posters on their office wall. I think what might be fun is a techy equivalent of the Keep Calm and Carry On poster.
posted by mippy at 7:16 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by mippy at 7:16 AM on June 29, 2010
Response by poster: OMG. Great answers so far. This might just win already.
posted by bristolcat at 7:17 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by bristolcat at 7:17 AM on June 29, 2010
Keep an eye out on the retro posters at Mondotees. They sell out kinda fast sometimes, but you might be able to nab one you like.
posted by dogwalker at 7:22 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by dogwalker at 7:22 AM on June 29, 2010
Doctor Whoot. Shows you have a soft-spot for animals and you're a geek.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:25 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 7:25 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: How about the New Zealand posters from Flight of the Conchords? They're marked as all rights reserved, but also 'Download the full-size version to print out and create a New Zealand Consulate experience in your very own home!'
Keep Calm and Carry On? The Wikipedia link has an svg file you can print in poster sizes with no loss of clarity.
Specific to your typography request, So you need a typeface?. via
Just noticed you don't want to print, only buy. Printing a print-ready graphic as a poster can be really cheap, almost certainly cheaper than buying prints. The only catch is rights, but the first two that I linked to seem to be cleared, and the third sells prints.
posted by mhz at 7:29 AM on June 29, 2010
Keep Calm and Carry On? The Wikipedia link has an svg file you can print in poster sizes with no loss of clarity.
Specific to your typography request, So you need a typeface?. via
Just noticed you don't want to print, only buy. Printing a print-ready graphic as a poster can be really cheap, almost certainly cheaper than buying prints. The only catch is rights, but the first two that I linked to seem to be cleared, and the third sells prints.
posted by mhz at 7:29 AM on June 29, 2010
Response by poster: Brilliant stuff so far! Brandon Bird is great and it will be hard to choose from among his work. CarolynG's linked retro time travel posters are GORGEOUS and exactly what I had in mind. Mhz's typeface poster is also exactly along the lines of what I was thinking about. And I can't believe I didn't realize that xkcd had a store. Off to check out some of the others. Haven't seen The IT Crowd, but will investigate. Thanks!
Also, I'm convinced to try printing. I forgot that I could pretty easily have posters done online and sent to me. So bring on those high-resolution, rights-free images!
posted by bristolcat at 7:44 AM on June 29, 2010
Also, I'm convinced to try printing. I forgot that I could pretty easily have posters done online and sent to me. So bring on those high-resolution, rights-free images!
posted by bristolcat at 7:44 AM on June 29, 2010
The planets of the Alliance! $30 for 5, 10 to choose from... if you ask real nice, they'll send a Mudder to your office to hang it for ya.
posted by marteki at 7:47 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by marteki at 7:47 AM on June 29, 2010
The retro videogame propaganda posters ThinkGeek sells are one of the more awesome things I've seen lately.
posted by cerebus19 at 7:49 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by cerebus19 at 7:49 AM on June 29, 2010
Response by poster: I just want to share this, which I just found: Deviant Art Prints Shop. I can already tell that I'm going to love the typography section.
posted by bristolcat at 8:02 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by bristolcat at 8:02 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/ - Information is Beautiful. Great book, awesome infographics, pretty wicked posters.
posted by greenish at 8:06 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by greenish at 8:06 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
I have The Great Bear in my cube and get many compliments on it. I love transport maps, too.
posted by pointystick at 8:16 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by pointystick at 8:16 AM on June 29, 2010
For a cheap printing option you could try taking an ordinary-sized image and using the Rasterbator. I'm thinking of getting a big-ass print of Ada Lovelace for my geekhouse.
posted by teraspawn at 8:17 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by teraspawn at 8:17 AM on June 29, 2010
Response by poster: Let me open this up to a few more categories:
-Infographics of any kind
-Traditional Japanese imagery
-Color!
-Anything that might be at home in a midwestern chamber of commerce/visitors' bureau
posted by bristolcat at 8:27 AM on June 29, 2010
-Infographics of any kind
-Traditional Japanese imagery
-Color!
-Anything that might be at home in a midwestern chamber of commerce/visitors' bureau
posted by bristolcat at 8:27 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: We just got in a sweet set of Adobe developer posters that list all the programming classes for Flash/ActionScript, Flex, etc... You can download the hi-res PDFs for print, but they'll actually mail you big hi-res printed copies if you register your copy of Flex (Help > Register Flex Builder).
These CSS & HTML reference charts aren't the most beautiful things in the world, but they are handy (and geeky!).
Here's a somewhat neat downloadable Web Standards in a Nutshell poster.
Some of these typographic posters are neat. Some of these are awesome.
IT posters galore! Total nerd-fu stuff.
Oh, and these aren't geeky per se, but I love ISO50's work -- and he's having a 20% off summer sale right now.
Not sure if this is up your alley, but the Nedroid Comics Shop features some hilarious, epically awesome prints.
Here are some Google posters.
An Android poster.
Zazzle's selection of programming posters
A cool Web trends map (from 2007, but still...).
A collection of Web 2.0 logos in poster form.
posted by sprocket87 at 8:42 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
These CSS & HTML reference charts aren't the most beautiful things in the world, but they are handy (and geeky!).
Here's a somewhat neat downloadable Web Standards in a Nutshell poster.
Some of these typographic posters are neat. Some of these are awesome.
IT posters galore! Total nerd-fu stuff.
Oh, and these aren't geeky per se, but I love ISO50's work -- and he's having a 20% off summer sale right now.
Not sure if this is up your alley, but the Nedroid Comics Shop features some hilarious, epically awesome prints.
Here are some Google posters.
An Android poster.
Zazzle's selection of programming posters
A cool Web trends map (from 2007, but still...).
A collection of Web 2.0 logos in poster form.
posted by sprocket87 at 8:42 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
And these Star Wars Victorian Portraits are awesome - too bad he doesn't have hi-res or print ordering available! Looks like lots of commenters are begging for prints though, so maybe he'll change his mind.
posted by sprocket87 at 8:47 AM on June 29, 2010
posted by sprocket87 at 8:47 AM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: City neighborhood posters
O'Reilly's "The History of Programming Languages" poster
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:48 AM on June 29, 2010
O'Reilly's "The History of Programming Languages" poster
posted by SuperSquirrel at 8:48 AM on June 29, 2010
I forget where, but you can get a free poster of DNA/the human genome project or something from some science-y website. It was on AskMe as an older answer to something, even...I ordered one and it came and it's gigantic.
What I'd love is the IPA chart in big poster size. So if anyone knows where to find one...
posted by ifjuly at 9:55 AM on June 29, 2010
What I'd love is the IPA chart in big poster size. So if anyone knows where to find one...
posted by ifjuly at 9:55 AM on June 29, 2010
@ifjuly:
This DNA chart?
Periodic Table of Beer (warning: ginormous!)
IPA chart
posted by sprocket87 at 11:38 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
This DNA chart?
Periodic Table of Beer (warning: ginormous!)
IPA chart
posted by sprocket87 at 11:38 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: More good stuff! Thanks! And I'm enjoying the WPA section on Zazzle. Lots of retro fun to be had there.
posted by bristolcat at 11:55 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by bristolcat at 11:55 AM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: I also want to add this gem: Eisenhower Interstate System (Simplified)
posted by bristolcat at 2:57 PM on June 29, 2010
posted by bristolcat at 2:57 PM on June 29, 2010
Best answer: Found a few more interesting things while searching around
For Sale
Retro Space Travel Posters
A different sort of retro poster style - Rétrofuturs. Also has a Flickr stream with many interesting things
Maybe could print out some of these? Lovely to look at nonetheless
Retro Star Wars Travel Posters
World War II style Star Wars Propaganda Posters
Vintage + Japanese + Science/Technology posters
posted by CarolynG at 3:28 PM on June 29, 2010
For Sale
Retro Space Travel Posters
A different sort of retro poster style - Rétrofuturs. Also has a Flickr stream with many interesting things
Maybe could print out some of these? Lovely to look at nonetheless
Retro Star Wars Travel Posters
World War II style Star Wars Propaganda Posters
Vintage + Japanese + Science/Technology posters
posted by CarolynG at 3:28 PM on June 29, 2010
I knew someone who had an IBM 8086 motherboard on the wall. Very geeky and cool looking.
posted by theora55 at 3:57 PM on June 29, 2010
posted by theora55 at 3:57 PM on June 29, 2010
The Imaginary Foundation
Edward Tufte
posted by PueExMachina at 8:24 PM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
Edward Tufte
posted by PueExMachina at 8:24 PM on June 29, 2010 [1 favorite]
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posted by Confess, Fletch at 6:58 AM on June 29, 2010