This article was published on August 3, 2015

You can turn the Lego, Slinky and Qwerty keyboard patents into high quality posters


You can turn the Lego, Slinky and Qwerty keyboard patents into high quality posters

Patents are records of art, in a sense. They are the legal solidification of creativity, flattened down to diagrams and cold copy.

How A Car Works, which specializes in illustrated automobile guides, has come up with a way of bringing classic patents to life – high-quality images you can print out as posters.

patent-prints-on-our-wall_w600
How A Car Works’ framed patent posters

The team there explains:

Old patents are beautiful. And they make gorgeous free art for the office.

A few weeks ago we remastered eight iconic patents, printed them onto A3 paper and framed them in Ikea RIBBA frames. The total cost was around $8 each and they look great on the office wall.

Google Patents is a treasure trove, but the images are too low resolution for a good print [so] we’ve made the high resolution versions…

They’ve picked a great set, the patents for the original Lego brick, the screw driver, the slinky, the jet engine, the jeep, the ‘flying machine’, the vice grip and the Qwerty keyboard.

I’m very tempted to follow their lead and make a Lego patent poster to hang in my living room.

Iconic Patent Art [How A Car Works]

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