Business cards can never, ever, ever be that normal business card size anymore. No way. Don’t do that. Or, do that, but do something super neat to the card to make sure they’re fun to keep, fun to look at, fun to post. And make em fat, like 1.5 mm mountboard fat. Green and white and screenprinted all over, here they are, courtesy of designer Phil Armson.

Clipped. That’s a nice green, yes? Really positive. Looks like it’s folded over, but it’s totally not. It’s printed quite nice, and cut down to size. Once you love this card enough, head on over to Phil Armson‘s portfolio and jam a bunch of money in his hand so he can make some miraculous works for you.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies cards category.

This is a fancy collection of fancy men and women from the 60′s and maybe the 70′s and maybe the 50′s, who knows, all of them on solid color backgrounds. Look at how dapper they all are! Such swanky fellow and swanky gals! These are all part of a huge collection of post cards collected and organized by a person named Poupi. Lots and lots of postcards for everyone. Now look at these selections of flat colored love.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies color category.

Behold a magnificent gigantonormous project from the graphic eyeballs perfection master WACKYSTUFF. What a fantastic name! What you’re about to look at is a project by him, one of re-purposed images done in a maximum style, a collection of images twelve HUNDRED deep! That’s one thousand, two hundred cards in this collection. Each card in this project is postcard sized, laminated, and has added deckled edges. Each of the images is FOUND, that means he didn’t draw them. This is POP. The project has a name, and it is “Metaphysical Graffiti.” Below you will find but a smidgen of the entire project, as twelve hundred would take a little bit too long to load.

In this post you will find one hundred and fifty four of the full 1200 cards, each of them with a missing element, the saying on each, those can be found on the cards themselves! Good luck finding those though, as they’re all already distributed to 1200 different people in the world! An example of one of these phrases written on the verso of the card is “Happiness is a Warm Gun” – this one of course goes with the card you see above.

The images I am uploading now are from a set of 1200 different cards I created for my project METAPHYSICAL GRAFFITI.

Each card showcases a FOUND IMAGE on the front and FOUND TEXT on the back. I didn’t draw any of these. Most of the images come from VINTAGE POSTCARDS.

Each 2.375 x 3.375 inch card was laminated and finished with deckle edges. They were printed in very small editions and given away. All that’s left are the images.

Applausition for you, Wackystuff! You are my hero for taking on such a huge project, executing it with such great craftsmanship and grace, not to mention you’ve got basically the best eye for keeping the right part of the image!

Bravo!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies cards category.

Welcome back to the Original Gangster days. Back when the copy machine was the only machine that was used to fire heat. Heated ink, slapped on paper. Business cards, made for trading, showing, distributing. Hand drawn letters, marks, stock images, and type. Fantastic design without even knowing it. The following set of business cards were gathered and scanned by art group “wearesupervision.” What a magical moment caught in what must be a masterful design collection. Where would one obtain such obscurities?!

Or you bet they knew what they wanted these cards to look like. Design in the exact same way a person who works for a design firm or freelance does now, no difference. These cards don’t look like anything that’d come out of a portfolio produced today, or yesterday for that matter, but they’re genius all the same.

Take a look through the gallery below and report back with the greatest and the least. Which Chicago street gang (that’s where these all come from) is the hardest, which one’s ink is layed down best? Then check out the bonus images (that just means they kinda match the set, but didn’t fit the description.) Basically there’s a few G’d up patches down in the gallery too. Hell of sewing skills only had by the baddest mothers on the blocks.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies cards category.

Your mother will tell you to cut your hair now! If you’re thinking about going to the These cards are designed with love by design group Y&R Thailand for Glammer Education Institute. Gosh darnit that’s a simple and lovely design, yes? I think it’s the little scissors graphic there that makes me just want to scoop them all up.

Get a card, see the card has a picture of a person who is in dire need of a haircut, and cut it! These cards only need a scissors and a will to cut and style hair (Zohan) and it will start you right on your way! The name of this project is “Let’s Start” as it sets any potential student of the school on the first step of their stairway to cut glory. And that is: practice.

Glammer Education performed with the high standard academy and many outstanding professional hairdressers. Glammer Education has been gradually developed to be a salon academy to date. The academic study will teach from the basic course until the professional class. Let’s start Collection comes from the idea of study at Glammer Education which everyone can enjoy the study at the beginning level.

Advertiser/Client: GLAMMER EDUCATION
Product/Service: GLAMMER EDUCATION INSTITUTE OF HAIR DESIGN
Entrant Company: Y&R THAILAND Bangkok, THAILAND
Design/Advertising Agency: Y&R THAILAND Bangkok, THAILAND
Creative Credits :
Phayungsak Jaruphun Y/R Thailand Creative Director
Veris Na Songkhla Y/R Thailand Art Director
Visionary Visionary Illustrator
Pavara Tanboonchit Y/R Thailand Account Management – Coloribus

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies deconstruction category.

Yes, from outer space. The inner part of outer space. Our friend Santa and in many cases, helpers aplenty, deliver gifts to all of the childrens of the earth. On space rockets. The debate should be settled by this post on weather Santa and his crew used such devices to access the entire world in a night – rockets are shown being used here quite clearly.

Thank you, Russia. Thank you for this.

Feel free to discuss the loveliness of Russian Christmas rockets in space below, meanwhile enjoy the fabulousness of the paint and ink that went into the designs on every excellent card. Hail to thee, oh you Russian postcard and holiday card design experts!

IT SHOULD BE NOTED: That in some reports, reports that I cannot verify, Christmas was officially banned in the USSR for a period of about 20 years after 1917: “After the Revolution of 1917, Christmas was officially banned, with the prohibition lasting until about 1935.” Crazy! Also note that many of these cards are New Years cards, having little to do with Christmas in fact.

This collection is harvested and curated by World Famous Design Junkies from the following sources: Jassy 50, Christine-Christine, John P Gelety, Brian Cantrell, Apple Min, Orchard Lake, Hidemitakadi, Dave the Game, Unrepentant Communist, Desert Pete, Baltic Merchant, Martin Klasch, Alternative Comix, Computer Stamps, Yana Postcards and Stamps, and especially Mazaika, who made a contribution not because they were aiming to collect post cards, but because they needed fodder for their photo mozaic software machine. Totally wicked wild wacky craziness and coolness!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies OUTER SPACE category!

So basically this record shop has my very favorite “standard size” business card ever. The shop goes by the title Music Saves and they’re located in Cleveland. They have a black cat, yes, a real live one, named Vinyl. That’s amazing by itself. But these cards, oh! These cards. Just look at them.

These cards were designed by one Mikey Burton. Below you’ll find more examples of fantastic design done for the record shop, some of it done by designers who aren’t Burton. But that’s just find, if I do say so myself.

Who ARE you?
We are TEAM MUSIC SAVES…owners Melanie and Kevin, and a black cat named Vinyl.

WHAT are you?
An independent record store specializing in indie rock and it’s extended family.

WHERE are you?
Cleveland Ohio, next to the Beachland Ballroom.
To be exact: 15801 Waterloo Road, Cleveland OH 44110

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies black and orange category.

Here’s a pretty little thang by the name of invite. A typographic solution for Will Hudson and Alex Beck aka “Hudsonbec” for a recent UK exhibition that included a giant figure-8 skateboard ramp. This particular typographic show-of-skill was designed and executed by designer Mario Hugo of France (somewhere in France, location hidden!)

The duo “Hudsonbec” I did not recognize at first. However upon further inspection I turned up their most recent project: http://itsnicethat.com/ ! Well you’d have to be a fool not to know what that is!

The actual object is letterpressed and postcard-sized. Gold ink on a dark, mysterious charcoal color paper stock. So mysterious that it makes the gold basically explode! Right off the page.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies ephemera category.

This napkin right here is a convenience towel. It’s from a place called “Eddy’s,” it’s a lake resort along Lake Mille Lacs in Minnesota. It’s got a reel good idea, or had a real good idea a while ago. This particular towel is from the vast archives of “free stuff” my dad owns. This he brings with in his “hotel kit” which is brought along when it’s time to stay overnight at the casino with a free room or whatever he’s happened to win this month.

Check this lovely thang out. Hella type.

It reads as thus:

CONVENIENCE TOWEL
PROVIDED TO…
-REMOVE MAKEUP
& LIPSTICK
-CLEAN…
EYEGLASSES
SHOES
LUGGAGE
WINDSHIELD
HEADLIGHTS

COMPLIMENTS OF…
EDDY’S
LAKE MILLE LACS RESORT

Blue on white. I cannot resist a good illustration of a boat. Especially when it’s Eddy’s. This post is truly from the World Famous Design Junkies ephemera category. Don’t throw it away if it’s good stuff!

As Emigre turns 25, FontFeed celebrates with a big huge post (you’ve gotta click that), and World Famous Design Junkies gets buckwild. I saw this fantastically red book cover that you see above* and said OH my goodness this is a good cover. The colors. The colors are so lovely I can scarcely believe it. This doesn’t happen just every 10 minutes, so I said to myself then that it was time, OMFG!

Time for the very first World Famous Design Junkies color retrospective!

*If anyone wants to pick this book up for me, that’d be just super.

This book, designed and edited by Emigre co-​founder and designer Rudy VanderLans, is a selection of reprints, using original digital files, tracing Emigre’s devel opment from its early bitmap design days in the late 1980s through to the exper i mental layouts that defined the so called “Legibility Wars” of the late 1990s, to the critical design writing of the early 2000s.

Emigre No.70 is a must have book for those who missed out on all the excitement the first time around and for those who have been long time Emigre fans alike. Any graphic design library would be incom plete without it.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies COLOR category – imagine that!

It is a powerful designer indeed who can not only set type, not only illustrate, but also pull the entire day-glo library out and put it in a blender and pour the contents into a Diary Queen Blizzard of a collection of works called ICONBLAST!

Your friends and mine, Minneapolis print duo Aesthetic Apparatus, conjure up a vast collection of test prints from all across their print library. As each color comes from each different print project, it is the skilled pulling of each bit of each unfinished test sheet that makes for a good final piece.

Some unnamed street artists (unless you’ve got some good graffiti interpretation skills) let loose the colorsplosion upon some unsuspecting cargo trains on Broadway and Johnson in North Minneapolis.

A color fantasy as seen through the eyes of OG graffiti superstar Futura 2000 – NOTE: the first comment on the post is from Lenny Futura himself!

Designer Dylan Mulvaney’s three-dimensional colortastic font for Manhattan Magazine is slick.

Another adventure into Minneapolis street art, this time up in Uptown. This is part of a gigantic collection of photos from Intermedia Arts – layer upon layer of lovely, lovely paint.

Photographer Jeff McLane places a color chart in the desert.

International photographer super-deluxe Erin Nicole Johnson captures Toronto’s own Honest Ed’s.

Next, we’ve got poster artist Tyler Stout with this fabulous Flight of the Conchords screenprint. Basically a billion colors, all of them precisely sliced.

During a camera battle for a colorful prize I can only imagine has something to do with the ruling of the entire universe, Akif Hakan Celebi manages to photograph a collection of naturally fantastic architectural colors on the streets of Turkey.

In a moment of genius that almost eclipses the rest of this set of underwater pictures, photographer James Cooper finds the distribution of pink spraypaint to be a new experience in the H2O.

This is mine. It is my favorite. It is a painting I acquired at the estate sale of the late James Burnley. The nunery and churchery is unsurpassed.

Aesop and the Brothers Grimm stories told with a neonic fantasmagorioum of color from who knows what dimension, as illustrated by Yiorgos Yiacos of 12×2 Design Group.

Producer / Artist / Rapper Pharrell Williams collaborates with International Superartist Takashi Murakami to create this Art Basel super-piece entitled “Simple Things” — 26,000 individual fine gems direct from the rainbow later and you’ve got Jacob the Jewelers most colorful (and expensive) project yet!

And of course, a “gigantic” post on World Famous Design Junkies wouldn’t be a complete post without the flea market – this one’s in Deutschland!

Click on through to those other sides or enjoy the gallery below!

This right here is a Treasure Chest post. In it you’ll find all the ammo you’ll ever need to be the most popular kid on the social network. Lots of fun, nicely designed and/or just utterly wild to look at items. If you can identify any of the items further than they’ve already been identified, please do so! The treasure chest is also a place for lost and lonely images that need a home. These internets exist to spread knowledge, power, and equality. Strength and honor. Tubes and internets.

“Running water never grows stale.”
Bruce Lee

You can find another post like this at Lost and Found – both of these posts are no-kill shelters for lost and stray images from all over this freaky silly world.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies weird category.

It’s that time again! Aesthetic Apparatus always getting they hands into something. This time it isn’t ink! That’s weird. Anyway, our pals at AA and designer Cole Gerst have a team of prints printed by foil stamp up at Tiny Showcase. Take a closer peek below, then buy BOTH tiny prints for $25 TOTAL. Kewl.

This edition of 500 foil stamped fine art prints was printed by one of the oldest continually operating print shops in North America. The artwork was created specially for the Shiny Showcase project launch by Aesthetic Apparatus and Cole Gerst. Prints measure slightly larger than 8″ tall by 5″ wide and contain plenty of border for matting and framing.

More info! I must have more info!

Shiny Showcase Presents: An Edition of Foil Stamped Fine Art Prints
by Aesthetic Apparatus and Cole Gerst

Edition of 500.
* Each print measures roughly 8 inches tall by 5 inches wide.
* The edition number has been blind debossed into the lower corner of each print;
* Each print ships packaged with its own certificate of authenticity.
* The artwork has been foil stamped on an archival midnight blue 270gsm printmaking paper.
* 176 sets from the edition are still available for purchase.

If you havn’t already, it’s probably time you clicked on over to the searchbar you see there in the upper right of this World Famous Design Junkies website and type in Aesthetic Apparatus – or just click that. Then if you’re still ravenous, take a peek at the illustration category and get yo self educated on the lines and the colors and the shades, foo!

Ho ho! So it seems skateboarding / streetwear brand SUPREME has gone back in time and created a deck of lovely big-faced cards. Or have they? This particular deck was found by yours truly at the weekly flea market in Fairhaven, Minnesota today and purchased for the steep, steep price of $1.50. I have a suspicion that these were not created by the same Supreme that you may already be aware of, but a lesser-known playing-cards-making doppleganger. Either way, I must say I enjoy their stylings.

UPDATE::

Supreme really HAS created a deck of cards in collaboration with Bicycle Playing Cards. One wonders if the new Supreme talked with the time traveling Supreme and they decided to do a re-up? Definitely.

Below lies a small collection of cards bearing the omnipotent ace of spades. Like the “G” in a font set, the spades ace is the real treat for the designer in creating a new set of faces for a deck of playing cards. It’s where they really get to shine. If you’re looking for the backs of cards, we got someone who’s got those, too: Kelly English. Below be the shovel’d ones!

The following pictures are from the following photographers: aspidistra, manicomi, donshades, Joel Tjintjelaar, pablo f. alcocer, shaync, Pierluigi Ricci, mlstros, dan davie, moirabot, pokerwire, Motörhead, the scientist, Michiel2005, odesssa, Mel Romero, illusion, jenx5, musicboy719, mickaul, rob1501, mac3, John Wardell (Netinho), valeriebb, mizellex, mtmont (black power), fishgeek, bltphoto, hihnt, Troy Thomas, pamglew, Janarhead, and yours truly!

Update: Unconventional Ace of Spades are now being added. Example: take a peek at that wagon wheel down there.

Update: Contribution from Erik Brandt from Geotypografika, totally in the right spirit:

Update: +9 Aces obtained at Fairhaven flea market aka swap meet, pictured below. Included in this set are the “Supreme” deck and the “Card Cubes” dice game ace of spades amongst others. At this point, each time cards are added to the set, they will be pictured at the top of the grid of pictures below.

Update: +1 Ace from the niece of the illustrator of the card set “Peter Green’s Hollywood Cardtoons!” The ace of spades is Brad Pitt. Hott, yes?

Take a peep at the most said card of them all, the great one, the one that has a song about itself, the Ace of Spades.

Whether you like it or not, whether you can afford it or not, the card you send out to your friends and relatives inviting them to your wedding says a lot / the most about how the wedding will be perceived. People will dress up or down based upon the card. People will take your marriage more (or less) seriously based on how the card was produced.

The card here, above and below, is the right way to do it.

AMAZING AS IT MAY BE, I GOT JESSIE TO AGREE TO MARRY ME. OUR INVITATION WAS BEAUTIFULLY LETTERPRESSED BY BRETT LAREAU AT BIRKS & BIRKS. – Evan Cotgageorge

Letterpressed wedding invitations for Evan Cotgageorge, who also beautifully designed them. Printed on French Paper Co. paper with black ink. Invites were 8″ square. – Birks & Birks

Letterpress, fools! Letterpress! Chops and indents, tactile feeling! The invite has to be a thing that people will not throw away EVER. Either because the card is so nice they can’t bear to part with it… or because you two are in love – awww.

Time pod! Designer Rynke Sangers has put together a rolodex of images of everything she owns. Large and small. There is an index, but no way to find where each thing is. Just like a tiny, drab, flippy memory bank! Everyone should have one.

Ho! Amsterdam!

This rolodex has printed cards of each and every posession Miss Sangers owns. Over 1400 cards, all listed and named in an index which does not then immediately point to the corresponding card. Each card is colored according to this code, as written by Miss Sangers:

Traces of a cherised or important memory (grey), Traces of memories that are not important to me (yellow), and objects I don’t know how I got them, so therefore don’t have traces of memories (blue).

There is no beginning, and there is no end.

What a wonderful relic that’s been created here for the generation after the generation. I recommend photographing the entire thing, page by page, for further posterity. – I get freaked out when I don’t document once-twice-thrice though, so maybe don’t worry about it!

Hooray! Estate Sale season has begun! Today I present to you a gem I picked on Saturday: TOURING. This is the 1955 version of the amazing automobile card game that has gone through several major redesigns since it’s inception in the early 1900′s. Check out the whole card set below, then see Board Game Geek for all the information you’ve ever wanted to know about the game.

Of special note: check out the font used for the title in the directions, and don’t forget to scream with glee at the wonderful green mountains picture on the back of the deck.

Here is an excellent project that completely disregards the current world economic crisis (as all great projects should!*) (*JKWTF) It’s about a dog owned by Mike HJ Chang in a plea for acceptance. http://springbreakpublishing.com/

MIKE HJ CHANG, “Dear Transit Authority (a Letter)”

“Dear Transit Authority” was originally presented as part of Mike HJ Chang’s 2008 Cal Arts Thesis show. Spring Break translated his photograph into a postcard and took it to its logical thematic and physical end: The L.A. Transit Authority offices.

To support Bacon, Mike, and efficiency, please buy a postcard and send it in. Available at Printed Matter and Golden Age

Mike is a recent MFA graduate of CalArts. More of his inventive work can be viewed at www.boatship.net

Click here To learn more about our GSFGA Grant

Billy Blue Graduate exhibition 2007 students trading cards. Many become one.

WHAT: Billy Blue Graduate exhibition 2007 students trading cards
WHERE: Billy Blue School of Graphic Arts, College of Design, Sydney
HOW: “Blood, sweat & ideas” is the concept of the exhibition, developed by the Graduation Team.
To accentuate the deep connections within each student, without losing their individuality, the trading card design plays with the word “ideas”,
changing it into “I d us”.

Made by Emanuel Gregori, Sydney Australia.

Courtesy credit cards free for you! These lovely freebies were given away at the beginning of this month at the D*Face show in London: “aPOPcalypse Now.” The show was kind of a pop-up show because it was only up for a couple days, but as I’m sure you’re aware that’s plenty of time for it to get worldwide coverage with this new thing called “the internet.” What we’ve got here for you today is total coverage of the show courtesy of our friend RomanYWG – plus the feature: this amazing bit of ephemera: the American Depress credit card.

Fabulous! This is the most important bit of the whole show. Apparently these were left sitting around the show for people to pick up and keep for their own. Kinda like a graffiti business card. This isn’t the first time one of these has been given out like this, take Shepard Fairey’s Ransom Note or Banksy’s Tenner for example (both also pictured below.) D*Face has a tenner too, but this is the first credit card I think. Peek it out! Both sides at the top of the gallery, then the SF, then the B, then pictures from the aPOPcalypse Now show courtesy of, again, RomanYWG. Thanks dewd!

aPOPcalypse Now
D*Face solo show at Black Rat Press.
Venue: 89a, Rivington Street,
London, EC2A 3AY.

This post is posted from the World Famous Design Junkies cards category. AND if anyone happens to have picked up a card and wants to be ever so kind to your faithful narrator, email chrisb @ worldfamousdesignjunkies .com and show a fellow a little love.