The paintings of Gordon Inyard
Gordon’s painting of the Pineland Diner at a former location
somewhere on U.S. Rte. 1 in Maine. It is currently located in
the town of Ellsworth, ME and operating as Maidee’s International
Cafe. It is now enclosed within another building.
Gordon’s painting of the Yankee Diner, Charlton, Mass.
I first wrote about Gordon Inyard in the “hard-copy” version of Diner Hotline back in the Spring-Summer, 1995 issue of the SCA Journal. It was in the “Diner as an Artform” piece in which I featured the work of Mary Michael Shelley, David Noyd as well as Gordon.
Gordon’s painting of the sign that belongs to a diner formerly known
as the Blue Crystal Diner, a Mountain View Diner located in
Long Island City, NY
I knew of Gordon and his work possibly through Randy Garbin (I cannot actually remember). I believe we had had some conversations by telephone as well as some correspondence. In 1992, my wife Denise and I had spent the Memorial Day weekend on Long Island, NY and had actually arranged to meet Gordon when he was showing some of his paintings at a gallery in Greenport.
Gordon’s painting of Leo’s Diner formerly of Rochester, NH
Gordon’s paintings are strongly remeniscent of John Baeder’s style, very photorealistic. We have remained in contact sparodically over the years and I thought it was time again to get his name out there for all my newer readers since I’ve brought Diner Hotline to the internet. Gordon has a website that people can check out at…. http://gordoninyard.com/
Gordon’s painting of the Arrow Motel sign
Coffee Mug Logos I have designed
Not long ago I posted photos of my coffee mug collection. I mentioned that a few of the mugs in the collection had logos that I designed. I am proud of these and my philosophy is that when I design a diner coffee mug, I do the design fairly accurate using a photo for the basis of the line-art. I then email the artwork to Westford China of Nashua, NH who create the coffee mugs for the particular customer.
Rosebud Diner
The first mug logo I designed was for the Rosebud Diner in Somerville, Mass. It was printed on one side for a right-handed person with the logo facing away. This artwork was created directly from a photograph.
Central Diner
The second mug logo was for the Central Diner of Millbury, Mass. This was also printed on one side although it was for a left-handed person with the logo facing away. This also was created directly from a photo.
Tumble Inn Restaurant
Jack & Jo Ann Neary asked me to design a logo for their coffee mug back around 2002. Being that the Tumble Inn (located in Saugus, Mass.) is a store-front type diner, Jo Ann wanted a logo representing the interior. I shot some interior shots one day and created line-art from one of those shots. They also wanted printing on two sides.
Tumble Inn Diner
A year ago Bob Penta, the current owner of the Tumble Inn changed the name from “Restaurant” to “Diner”. When he found out I did the original logo he asked me to update it to reflect the changes.
Lunch Box Diner
When I designed the Lunch Box Diner coffee mug logo for Scott and Kristen Drago I tried to convert a photo to line-art but had a difficult time with it. I then resorted to my Adobe Illustrator skills and actually created the line-art by drawing over the photo, using it as a template. This worked very well and has become my preferred method for the creation of line-art.
Tim’s Diner
I recently designed a logo for Tim’s Diner in Leominster, Mass. It has not been actually ordered and printed yet but should be within a short time. I told Tim his logo that he has for his t-shirts would work well but he said he wanted the diner to look the way it used to before it was hit by an automobile and got a brick facade under the windows. he knew I had a couple of photos from the early 1980’s and wanted me to use one of those for the creation of the line-art. I enjoyed doing this one as it is one of my most favorite diners. As I tell Tim almost everytime I go there, I wished I lived closer as I would be there all the time!
Diner Hotline Weblog 
Thanks for the interesting information on the diner mugs and how you do the artwork. This is one area of the diner world that I never really thought about until you posted that picture of your amazing collection. Now I want every single one…
I’m not certain which production run this was from, but my Central Diner mug also says “Worcester Lunch Car #673.”
Also interesting was how you described “left handed” and “right handed” mugs. I personally would turn that around, and say the Central Diner mug is for a right handed person, so he can enjoy the artwork while drinking from it!
Glenn, I believe that was possibly the second run of the Central Diner mug. The Gore’s had Westford China add that line of text at the bottom, I have one also.
Larry- when I took the Retro Roadkids to The Nest Diner in Mattapoisett they had some mugs there- are those your designs as well?
Being left handed I’m always mindful of where the image is placed on a mug- if I have a mug with a cool graphic on it, I want to show it off, so I look for the images to be facing outward. And funny, If I think of the way a mug “should” look when I’m photographing it, I like the handle to be on the right. That makes sense from my visual merchandising days (since most folks are right handed and would want to grab the handle with their right hand) but it works out well for us left handed folks who drink from the mugs!
No Beth, I did not do the Nest Diner mug. I posted only the diner mugs I designed, (not counting the one I did for Royal Label Company). You are right though, if you are holding a mug, the graphics should be away from you.
Very nice work on the mugs Larry. Crisp and Bold.