Presenting the wildest use of collage I’ve ever seen applied to a fantasy comic book convention game boy situation. This is MCAD grad Mitchell Kenneth Lewis’s Pokemon project. One where he takes different parts from all sorts of other projects like photography projects and works them together with some hot photoshop skills and creates something completely wild in the jungle. Pokemon cartoons turned into what they’d probably look like if they existed in the same plane of existence as us.

Oh Pokemon, how fun you’ve been for so very many years. How Japanese you are. How diverse is your cartridge full of digital animals. Mitchell Lewis has a fanbase. He’s got 9 down, 141 to go. Pokemon. In the original game, there were 151 Pokemon (150 + the secret Mew.) He’s gonna catch em all. He’s gotta! Perfect for viral spread, perfect for promotion!

Find more wild action on the Mitchell Lewis portfolio ikioi.

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

Welcome to Dinkytown. This is the tiny little set of businesses that make up the soul of the University of Minnesota campus. This is where Bob Dylan used to live. Ask anyone. This post is the first of four explorations of one of the main drags through Dinkytown, that being 14th Avenue SE, starting where the U of M campus ends and ending after two blocks down the line. This post and the three posts following are a close inspection of every little message blasting the eyes of citizens and students alike as they walk to and from businesses and classes on a day to day basis. Our first journey is the West side of the street between University Avenue and 4th Street. Feast your eyes and click wildly.

This is one of four journeys. To find the rest of 14th Avenue Dinkytown, simply click [here] or search “14th Avenue Dinkytown” in the search bar. If this post has JUST been posted, there might only be one post. If you’re reading this in the future, there should be at least four full posts with a total of over 400 photos inside. Enjoy!

If you’d like to use any of the photos in any of the four “14th Avenue Dinkytown” posts, feel free, just be sure to credit them with “WFDJ MPLS” if you please. Thanks!

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

This is a brand new set of colored squares with precious objects inside them by artist Susana Blasco. She’s made it a quest for herself to enlarge single moments of brilliance into squares of truth, if you will, by photographing (and sometimes manipulating) objects, putting them then onto a single color background – or putting them on a single color background and photographing them. Whichever comes first. This newest set goes by the name “Ceci n’est pas un hommage à Magritte,” which in English means, “This is not an homage to Magritte,” which is of course speaking about the famous artist René Magritte, who is of course famous for doing paintings of single subject matter such as a pipe (see: “The Tune and Also the Words, 1964″) which can also be seen below.

In the pipe painting you’ll see the words “Ceci n’est pas une pipe” which means “this is not a pipe.” This painting was replicated in 2007 by the fabulous modern artist Dave Kinsey in his screenprint poster “Not a Gun” (also pictured in the gallery below)

Not A Gun, 2007
18 x 24″ 2c screenprint
on acid-free archival paper
Signed & numbered
edition of 300

Of course “The Tune…” is also a different version of the more well known René Magritte, “The treachery of images (This is not a pipe),” 1929, which is a more stripped-down image of the pipe. Then there’s the 1966 painting by Margritte again, this one showing two pipes, one on a wall and one in a frame: “The Two Mysteries,” 1966. So many replications of replications (pictured in gallery below.)

Of course that was Margritte’s point, and thusly so too must it be at least part of the point Susana Blasco makes in titling her newest collection of images “Ceci n’est pas un hommage à Magritte.” Blasco explains each of these images in her own words here:

Each year the DPZ calls the “Awards and Grants for Arts and Culture.” The publication of this year to promote them is a homage to Magritte. So in each picture is mixed classic icons of the painter (the pipe, the clouds, hat ,…) with other elements to refer to each of the awards in different ways. Here in this order: cover (hat), sculpture and installations (clouds), visual creation (pipa), travelogues (egg), translation projects (apple), audiovisual (key), literature (umbrella) and expansion of art studies (siren).

We’ve also got images of the book Blasco constructed for DPZ plus this description:

Booklet

DPZ awards Young and creative people in several areas such as: arts, literature works, essay, travel stories, expansion of artistic studies, audiovisual works and plastic arts. The booklet of this year is a tribute to Magritte. For this reason, each illustration puts together Magritte’s classic icons (pipe, hat, the clouds,…) with other creativity & art elements.

DIPUTACION PROVINCIAL DE ZARAGOZA (London) 2010

Take a look at the Margrittes, the Kinsey, and the Blascos below, then head on over to Blasco’s portfolio or blog for more insight into her world or more super amazing pictures to dip your eyeballs in for pure pleasure.

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

BONUS here’s some additional insight into the “Gun” piece by Kinsey, courtesy of everyone’s favorite friendly neighborhood Admonkey:

What makes Kinsey’s riff so special is the incorporation of Virginia Tech-orange iconography so close on the heels of the Virginia Tech massacre (massacre on April 16, print released on May 4) and our politicians’ refusal to allow the idea of gun control to enter the debate in its immediate aftermath. (“To those who want to make this into some sort of [gun control] crusade, I say take this elsewhere.” –Virginia Governor Tim Kaine in comments shortly after the massacre.)

For that, Kinsey can certainly be forgiven for the co-opting of Rosenquist’s idea. In art, context is as big a player as idea and image.

For more magical Admonkey moments, head on over to thegiant.org

Czech yourself before you… set yourself on fire with these amazing uncut matchbox labels from a master design collector, none other than MCAD design professor Kindra Murphy. She’s just started a flicker feed as this post is written. This is her first set of images, and they’ll only get better from here. That’s not to say that these aren’t the best thing ever though, as they certainly must be, but Kindra’s the sort of person who kinda sorta outdoes herself each time she sets loose a new set of super cute, tastefully arranged items.

If you take a look at the limited selection of Kindra Murphy related items we’ve got here, you’ll note that they’ve all got to do with the hunt. The addiction, the healthy addiction to design collecting. It is one of the most base goals of World Famous Design Junkies to share the exploits of just such a person as Kindra Murphy, one who in turn makes healthy the world of design at large. A healthy appreciation and an eye for loveliness in color, arrangement, and form.

NOW take a look at this collection she’s collected. It consists of Czechoslovakian uncut matchbox labels, and Czechoslovakian uncut matchbox labels only. Devour them, and continue to wait in tingly-fingered anticipation for new sets from her at her Kindra is Here! flicker page.

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

Drodding about the internet helped me happen upon the image you see above this sentence. It is a high-quality patch made in the real world reflecting the alternate-reality depicted in the 1986 story “Watchmen.*” This patch is presented by The New Frontiersman Watchmen fangroup, made by the people who were in charge of promoting the 2009 Watchmen movie, I’m pretty sure. Inspired heavily by this excellent manifestation of what was and what wasn’t, I went on a hunt for other, more “real” patches from the Vietnam war, as worn by the real soldiers on either side of the conflict.

*Watchmen was originally created as a 12-issue comic book limited series created by writer Alan Moore, artist Dave Gibbons, and colorist John Higgins in 1986 and 1987. In 2009, a film was made of the series, directed by Zack Snyder and overly-promoted by Warner Bros. and Paramount Pictures with books and action figures and all that fun stuff.

But this post is all about the patches! And not the Watchmen patch so much as the inspiration for that patch, the patches of Vietnam. Ten examples of Vietnam War patches are shown and described below, followed by a gallery of all kinds of patches from all along the timeline of the war, from all kinds of companies.

Such lovely stitchings.

Several of the patches below are from the same galleries of photos. The following list shows every gallery these images are from along a description of one of the patches: Flying Death (heart) USM forum, Grim Reaper ace of spaces Dive Patch, Nurses Haven Flying Tigers Surplus, 1st Cav Grunts, 1st Cav Deck Landscaper, Hatchet Team Worthpoint, PRU Strike Force 7 (ebay seller), Screaming Eagles Colin MacGregor, and USS Kitty Hawk NavySite.

1. One of the few non-American patches in this collection is this district militia patch from South Vietnam. Look at that lovely blue! Look at those soldiers with their hats!

2. Recon Wyoming has such a harsh message that you’d almost think it was done in jest: “KILL FOR PEACE” it says on one side, “NEVER RETREAT” on the other.

3. An excellent example of an insane skull. This sort of rudimentary skull… with fangs… struck FEAR into the nightmare hearts of not only the enemy, but the bunny rabbits, the fish, the locals, the air, the water, everything. Holy crap look at those fangs.

4. Bravo Bears! Such a distorted vision from the MeKong Delta!

5. The completely bad-ass 101st Division’s First Brigade were deployed to Vietnam in 1965. They wore a huge assortment of these “chicken patches,” assorted because they were made by such a variety of producers, “pro” and totally amateur. Four examples are here, 1968-72. Check out an extended story on the chicken patch at 101A.

6. The 7th Infantry Division Scout Dog Platoon is orange and black. Reddish orange. Like it’s on fire, dangerous and toxic. Simple. Triangular.

7. West Virginia CCC Ace of Spades Reaper Skull reminds a fellow of the scene in Apocalypse Now where Colonel Bill Kilgore tosses death cards on the bodies of his dead and defeated opponents. This happened in the real war as far as I know too, this being companies of soldiers having their own brand of playing cards which they’d toss on bodies, showing the enemy who killed their comrades. Terrifying. Here’s a patch along those lines.

8. Da Nang 282nd AHC Alleycats. Look at that cat. It has a large, powerful gun that it’s going to use to kill the hell out of everything, everywhere. Also, he MIGHT be on a rocket which will propel him straight on to victory.

9. Photo Recon RRU – FAC Mosquito. Photo spy time! According to the auction listing for this patch, it’s unfinished, so this design might never have ended up being used in the war, but you can see the style similarities in the weirdo animal illustration.

10. The 584 Engineer Company, Cam Tanh Bay Vietnam, WOOLY BULLIES. That’s what’s to be scared of. These triangle warriors, holy crap. I doubt they were ever defeated, even a one of them. Look at them! Wooly Bullies! They danced to Sam the Sham. Clearly.

Now look at this collection of patches. There’s so many of them. This is only a small sampling of the whole worldly batch because of the awesome nature of the situation.

End war.

Patches forever.

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

Apparently David Choe is the most baddest of all dudes or something because he’s always hanging out with naked women and terrifyingly brutish looking men. Did you know this? Just four days ago he released these photos he took of Danny Trejo. Choe is known on the whole for his undeniably masterful paintings, but he’s also an intense photographer. And he’s got a book out right now to promote, and Trejo has a movie coming out (“Machete”), so they called each-other up on their dial-tone phones and decided to have a play date.

Stop. If you don’t know who Danny Trejo is right now, instantly watch this video which is a trailer for Machete. Trejo is one unique individual, unmistakable whenever he’s on the screen, on the screen hundreds of times, “discovered” in a prison cell. Killer.

Above and below you’re going to see what seems to be a piece of meat cut off of a tiger-sized project that’ll be out in the future. More Trejo artworks by Choe is better artworks. You’ll notice Choe artworks all around, looking at the face of, and ON Trejo.

Facehand!

Some words from David Choe in regards to this mini photo project:

“I CANT FEEL NOTHING, DON’T LEAVE ME LIKE THIS, PLEASE HOLMES “– one of my favorite lines ever from one of my favorite movies ever HEAT, from the baddest dude in town DANNY TREJO.

you know who he is, he’s the bad dude in every movie, He’s the first Latin Superhero, he’s Mexico’s version of our asian bad dude, AL LEONG, who is also in every movie, i always hoped some asian director would recognize Al’s skills and give him a starring role in his own major motion blockbuster, but the latino’s were smarter and prouder and director robert rodriguez, gave DANNY TREJO the starring role in his new dream project MACHETE with Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey playing supporting roles. Congratulations Danny! you deserve it! look for it in theaters next month, here’s some flicks i recently took of Danny at the studio, he’s one of the coolest, nicest, and funniest fuckers ever, i don’t think it’s still considered rape ,if you let someone rape you, look for a collaboration project in the very near future, stay tuned holmes.

Also below are some poster-looking concoctions of cool people holding a new Choe book made for promoting the purchase of the book. Gotta catch em all.

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

Although I’m sure there are many… pieces… missing from MST3K – pieces of brain matter, sensicality, other bits of film and metal, this is the piece we’ve got. What’s going on right here is the collected POSTERS from the movies watched and spoken on by the MST3K robots and dude. The films this crew watched ranged many years, through the 50′s, 60′s, 70′s, etcetera, through graphic design terror and genius. Turns out the posters for the movies they featured on this show have QUITE a range and, now that the internet is around, are totally sitting around all over the place. And now they’re all here.

A big fat gallery of posters from the MST3K movies. Here. Now. Instantly.

MST3K is also called, by those long-winded folks in the audience, Mystery Science Theater 3000. It’s a show made by some people living in our home-town state Minnesota, the first episodes recorded at the now defunct Paragon Cable studios and customer service center in Hopkins, Minnesota. It went on to collect an intense cult fan base and rock for almost 200 episodes, plus live shows, plus mini specials. The entire experience consists of a dude and several robots sitting in a movie theater watching old, weird, and often terrible movies, commenting out loud about them as they’re shown. You may recognize the shadows of these fellows and the movie theater seats at the bottom of the screen, it’s the most iconic bit of the entire show. For example, here during Radar Men from the Moon:

Each episode of MST3K a movie is introduced, watched, skewered, and giggled about and that’s it. But those movies had lives of their own before this show. They had time in the theater, time in schools (if they’re informational “growing up movies”), sometimes even time in people’s homes, and for that they needed posters for promotion! We’ve got the big list of those movies, and using our long, tendrilly fingers and amazing archiving sites such as the most fabulous Wrong Side of the Art and MST3K Temple, we’ve collected the major bulk of the MST3K series – in poster form.

Curation of this collection often produced one single poster, more than likely the most fabulous one, but in some cases the whole lot was necessary. For example, Godzilla vs. Megalon – that movie was loath to create a poster that wasn’t basically perfect. But then there’s also films whose posters were just terrible, just as bad – or sometimes worse! than the films themselves were, but are now amazing because of it. A giant hand!

Below you’re going to find this gallery of posters in alphabetical order. The big list of MST3K’d films can be found here: mst3k.wikia. If you see or know of a movie on this list that doesn’t have a poster in the gallery below, AND you know where to find one, speak up! We’ve got 150+ out of the nearly 200. Note that the alphabetical order of this list is based on the “official” film title as it comes from that wikia list, not as much from the posters, as lots of them are in the situation where they’ve got several releases and several titles.

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

A tiny documentary in four photos of the insides of the photographer. It’s Ibai Acevedo’s strangest moment in four frames. Acevedo is a multitalented photographer whose filled herself with some colorful liquids and… let it all come out… upwards?

Devour such a lovely situation en large.

This project, “Lo que tengo yo dentro,” is listed under the “Personal” section of Acevedo’s online portfolio. Personal, side, “random”, these are the projects I just cannot leave a portfolio without looking through. And more often than not, there’s something in there that ends up being fantastic and perfect for World Famous Design Junkies. Lo que tengo yo dentro means “What Do I Have Inside,” basically.

To get in contact with Ibai Acevedo with the emailings, use this one: hello @ ibaiacevedo.com, or, if you want to see lots more work updates and such, head on over to http://ibaiacevedo.com/ and click click click and see see.

ALSO right after the four liquid inside photos there’s some other fabulous selections from Acevedo’s portfolio. It’s impossible to post them all though, they’re too epic for one post.

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

I hope you remember Mighty Max. The adrenaline pumped up equivalent of Polly Pocket. All you fun loving compact-hands holding and playing around people who were kids when it was 1992. That’s me! That might be you. So what’ve we got here? A bit of artwork. This is a set of hands that graced the fronts of the packages that held the Mighty Max blister packed playsets. A couple examples of those are included below, plus the rest of the whole set of hands. They’re creepy and they’re cooky.

UPDATE 2: RE-POSTED FOR SIZE – this post was originally posted before we had a site layout that allowed images larger than 500px wide. Now we do, so now this is!

Now there’s a guy out there, one heavy collecting dude. He loves to get toys, images of toys, everything that’s got to do with toys. One’s that had big effects on our brains as kids, especially when the toys were small. This guy’s name is Spectrum is Green and he’s got it all. He’s also on the lookout for new playset-related toys all the time so drop him a line if you’re into getting rid of all of yours, or just want them to go to a good home.

UPDATE: After an extended conversation with the collector behind the “Spectrum is Green” collection, (his name is Guy Himber,) we now know that these pictures are scans of the original artwork, aka the painted images as they existed before being applied to the packaging. Hot! Sexy! Amazing!

Now what you’ve got here is monster playsets and their monster hand equivalent. Sometimes it’s a wolf with a wolf, sometimes it’s a shark head with a mass of octopus tentacles for a hand. And they’re nice. They’re really simply painted, really precisely executed. Looking really pretty all the way through.

Now check it out – we’re on the lookout for the artist of these masterpieces. They were on the boxes, so maybe the boxes have a little signature on them? Anyone whose got one of these in the package still should take a peek!

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

OR! Onomatopoeics!

At the heart of every great piece of pop is a simple combination. A combination of words, a catchphrase, a combination of colors, an iconic image, and sometimes a combination of it all, so perfectly distilled that it sends shockwaves through our collective systems that never stop! Behold, Bat-viewers! It’s the action cards! Those everloving combinations of color and exclamation the likes of which have never been used as effectively before or since! Gotta catch em all, someday, you never know – a good shot is below!

This is a collection of bat-cards used at the point of contact in the Batman live-action television series and bigtime bomb movie! You’ll see combos of 2 and 3 colors as well as singular splashes over the still-moving screen. These kinds of cards of course come from the colorful creations drawn into comics since the dawn of coolness. Keep reading, bat-lovers, because the story doesn’t end there. Nay!

One must attest to the greatness of those who took and take the time to scour the great bat-archive for these images. Those fine folks with the time, effort, and great and holy task of watching every single episode of the Batman show and movie to find these indubitable images, look them up, they’s amazing! These are them: John (A.Pennyworth), Scott Sebring, Shadenfreude!, Bat Mania!, TV Squad!, Batman 66!, M-Rumors!, Cynical-C!, TV Acres!, Graphics Hunt!, Bat Blog!, Museum.TV!, and a bunch o’ random folks on Photobucket!

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

A hundred and twenty-three years before 1995, there was railroad built in Costa Rica that connected San Jose to Limon in the Caribbean coast. A hundred and twenty-three years later, the Costa Rican government shut it down. Some years after that, in 2003, photographer Guillermo A. Durán and his pal (unnamed) took a two day hike along the length of the lost railway. This is that journey nutshelled inside a collection of some fabulous black and white photographs. Be prepared for some nature-rules-rocks.

This journey officially begins in the tiny town of Turrialba and aims for Siquirres town, down inside the Reventazon River canyon. If you’d like to take this entire journey en español, take a peek at the blogspot blog that accompanied along the trail: Cuenticos 506. This is a sort of journey every photographer aught to have to take: one that follows a trail set by a person or organization before them, one where they’ve got to capture a set of images inside a wholly especial set of events during a set of days that had been laid down over a long set of years. In this case, that amount of days for the photographers was two, while the remains of the events they collected was over a hundred and twenty three!

While the photographer’s ultimate goal, that one where they attempt to collect the heart and the soul of their subject, is ultimately impossible, try they must. And try we must to support, for even the most lofty goal is important for the human spirit to run after.

Now take a peek at this one.

To get in contact with the photographer Guillermo A. Durán, email over to gds506 at gmail.com. To continue to fawn over his works with your eyeballs, take a look in the gallery below, then head on over to his official http://duranfoto.net/ internets.

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

We’ve been submitted some anonymously-photographed photos from the empty BUNGE tower over in Dinkytown, Minneapolis. These photos are full of lots of fabulous (and some terrible) graffiti and other silly drawings. All on the walls, all on the trains. From the looks of it, the train photos were taken right next to the tower, and the dark photos were taken inside the tower, probably all on the first level. You’ll notice a couple pics of some writing up at the top of the tower – this paint was up for about a week or two in early June, 2010, and’s now painted over. This happens up there from time to time.

Pretty sassy. Pretty dangerous.

BONUS: since we got our BIGTIME gallery going, we re-uploaded the photos from this project as full-sized. Take a peek through the gallery below for some hotness.

Now like when we get any set of anonymously submitted photos, you’ve gotta note that we DO NOT know who took them. I’m certain that it’s trespassing being inside this building, so the photographer more than likely does not want to be tied directly to these photos. That doesn’t mean you can go around taking credit for them, but it does mean you’ve got free reign over using them. Feel free to print them out, for example, if that’s your bag, but be respectful. Even illegal work is still someone’s work.

NOTE that we do not advocate the taking of any photos where you’ve got to be somewhere where it’s illegal for you to stand, and will not post anything of the sort (unless, of course, they’re submitted anonymously.) Stay safe! And don’t go out at dark. Be smart.

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

It takes a certain type of person to stand directly in front of another person they’ve never met, taking a photo of them and running away. That’s what Samuel Hervas does, he does it so good. And you know where he does it? Rome. He’s got this set of photos called “Tourists”, the whole set of photos taken in Rome, Italy, the whole set of photos taken of tourists walking all about the city. I went there one time and never saw Hervas, but I would not be surprised if he sneaked a pic somewhere or another in there. I ate lots of pizza and gelato.

When you live in a city like Rome, it’s difficult to take photos of people who AREN’T tourists. When you do, you capture the Italians waving their hand backward saying “chau.”

Take a peek at this whole set, then peek a look back at the rest of the works done by Samuel Hervas on his portfolio site. On that note, if you enjoy excellent and fantastic photos of city-centric scenes and people in those places, take a lurk on up to the search bar here in your upper-right and type in the city of your choice inside quote signs for good measure. If you don’t see the city of your choice, enter the city of your choice in the center top submit section that’s normally reserved for portfolios. Do it. Rock it.

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

The following is a collection of images prepared and executed by a designer that goes by the name “Data Driven Decision Making” and, in addition to being a designer, is what I’d call a magician. Maybe a color magician. Not just color though, arrangement of mathematically perfect squares in a way that makes anyone who glances upon them glance twice. This has to do with not only making things beautiful, but in accessing the minds of all the people who will most likely see these images, taking their collective visual experiences and molding those into engaging singular images.

So here they are, Data Driven Decision Making conglomerations. In this collection of his images, you’re bound to find some engaging experiences. This, though not necessarily more or less than everyday lovely graphic design, will bring you to a new place in your day. These images will move you one square in any direction.

Your attention, your mind.

Depending on the age of this post, head over to the portfolio site of DDDM for new amalgamations. Also feel free to purchase some of these images, as applied to tshirts, over at this Russian-only PrintDirect store. Also his REAL name is Nikolay Bezhko and you can check him out on twitter over at Cashaloot.

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

Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey. The Greatest Show on Earth. Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. 2nd Largest Circus. These are the dirt and mud spawning beds of some of the most fantastic poster design in the history of the world. I’m drawing a line in the sand here, a circus line. One that clowns honk their lives on. Lions and tigers, trapeze artists, acrobats, and everything else they could fit inside three rings and a whole mess of tent. This is a poster collection consisting of the Princeton University collection of American Circus posters PLUS a whole mess of additional posters as wrangled up from collections across the internet, including of course the US Library of Congress – our friends!

NOTE: On the copyright of these items: for the most part, anything from Ringling Bros and Barnum & Bailey are from the 1940′s and 50′s and are probably still within someone’s legal right to claim ownership over. MANY of the other items you’ll find here are from around the 1900′s, making them so old that they’re legally entered into the public domain. If you do not know what this mumbo jumbo is about, please take the time to read up on USA copyright before you start your own tshirt and poster business with these images.

With fabulousness such as this, it’s tempting, isn’t it? Hella tempting.

Now the following collection is hella diverse. You’re going to find posters from the previously mentioned Ringling Bros and Barnum & Baileys all the way down to Al G. Kelly and Miller Bros. 2nd Largest Circus and Circus Krone. That one, Krone, for example, is German, but for the most part, this collection stays in America.

What we’re searching for here is excellence. Pre-cursors to the maximus minimalist design of today, here’s the extravagance without getting the jumblance. True masters are at work here, truly masters in their fields. And what’s ironic about that? Many of these posters were probably designed in a field. All grassy and inky. Covered in elephant dung.

Super awesome!

To access details about many of these posters, please move your brain on over to a collective page here that’s got each poster listed with the information Princeton uncovered about date, accession, size, and even the drawer they’ve got it held in if you ever plan on going over to see these posters in real life. I bet they get even doozier.

Another excellent resource for more information on these images is Wikimedia Commons, where searching for Circus Posters is as simple as doing a double backflip, catching a lion along the way! — Now let’s take a look down here. In some cases I left the whole poster (most cases, I should say,) but then in a bunch of pictures I cut down posters for you to see some magnificent close-ups.

ALSO: Check out these sources for more magical poster power – V. Poster Works, Circus Museum, Vintage Rock and Roll, and the NYPL Gallery Library. Note that this gallery is considerably large in the “American Circus” category, but some other languages and attractions were allowed to slip in due to awesomeness. Example: Solomon the Man Monkey – this missing link goes to church on Sunday!

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

Below you’ll find the rest of the gallery. Feel free to click any tiny image here to bring up a larger version, then move back and forth through the gallery using the “Next Image” and “Previous Image” links. Then, if you’d like the entire set in their largest format, don’t hesitate to download a big fat .zip file of all the pictures: wfdj_circusposters.zip courtesy of the hardcore design collector family here at WFDJ.

All good things must fade away. Or rot. That’s why you’ve got to get out there and photograph them. So everyone can hoard them! In this case, it’s about food. How could a person possibly wear a helmet made of cauliflower? This is a question that everyone should be asking themselves, especially if they’re in the fashion industry, as true fruits, vegetables, and dead animals, are really pretty! And should, by all means, be worn as jewelry. That’s what designer / photographer Fulvio Bonavia thought, and thinks, and thusly made happen. This set of photos is called “A Matter of Taste.”

These sorts of fashionable bits have existed, often executed poorly by those with more imagination than craftsmanship. However, they HAVE been translated quite well into such things as dresses and shoes. An excellent, albeit strange example of this is the watermelon knitted sweater by Sirena con Jersey. Another really fabulous example is the popcorn bucket dress by Nicole Linder. Of course neither of these are made out of any REAL fruits or popped vegetables, but they’re cute, right?

The next step I think is absurdly designed sneakers. Maybe just painted up a bit.

But until then…

What you’re about to view in the gallery below is only a small sampling of the cornucopia of foods translated as clothing as photographed by Bonavia. When one thinks of it, one wonders why things such as this have not been executed with as much skill in the past. It must just take the right combination of brain power and availability of action. Also it’s gotta be the right season for the farmers to grow these things.

NOTE: These items are now part of a published book by the same name “A Matter of Taste.” Fulvio Bonavia was inundated with requests so often that he collected all the images together in a fabulous presentation book, available wherever in the world you might find it for sale, you lucky dog you.

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

Wayyy too many commas in this post. Lulz.

So graphic design and poster printing team Aesthetic Apparatus is ten years old. …wait a second, weren’t they ten years old LAST YEAR? Yes, yes they were. That’s why there’s an exhibition at the MCAD gallery here in Minneapolis that’s going by the name “AAXI: A DECADE OF AESTHETIC APPARATUS, ONE YEAR LATE.” View MCAD-approved photos of the opening night below.

Words from AA/MCAD about what’s going on here:

The distinctive, hand-printed concert posters of Aesthetic Apparatus duo Dan Ibarra and Michael Byzewski have garnered international acclaim since 1998. In 2002, Aesthetic Apparatus became a full-fledged, award-winning studio, completing a spectrum of design projects in addition to the posters they loved to produce. “Aesthetic Apparatus: 10 Years, 1 Year Late” showcases their many treasured “artifacts” from the past 10 years as well as a collection of their acclaimed work.

Ibarra and Byzewsk have created for such clients as Blue Q, Stella Artois, Harper Collins, The Economist, and Criterion Collection and for such bands as Cake, Frank Black, Spoon, The Hold Steady, The New Pornographers, Dinosaur Jr., and Grizzly Bear. Their work has been featured in Print, Step Into Design, Communication Arts, Creative Review, HOW, Rolling Stone, Swindle, Jane, and ReadyMade Magazine, along with heavy handfuls of design book publications and the rock poster bible The Art of Modern Rock.

Start Time: Friday, May 28, 2010 at 6:00pm
End Time: Sunday, June 27, 2010 at 6:00pm
Location: Minneapolis College of Art And Design – Main Gallery
Street: 2501 Stevens Avenue
City/Town: Minneapolis, MN

Ohh and there’s an audio guide! I wish there were an audio guide for every big (and tiny) event I attend in my life. Think of the possibilities!

AAXI: Ten Years of Aesthetic Apparatus audio tour available for download here: www.aestheticapparatus.com/AAXI.zip

Slap it onto yer MP3 player and bring it to the event!

OR

Call 612.435.3316 to listen to the audio at the event!

OPENING RECEPTION: FRIDAY MAY 28TH 2010 • 6PM • MCAD MAIN GALLERY

Below you’ll find a small collection of photos taken by MCAD photographer Amalia Nicholson on the night of the opening. Highlights: the big moosey, original hand-written business plan (not pictured), and the big huge GIANT wall of prints – one that goes up several stories into the school.

Go cheque it out!

BONUS: Also included below (first in the gallery) is the postcard used to call the city in to have a nice opening party. It uses a nice photo of the fellows also shown in the show.

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

Perhaps you live in a house. Perhaps you live in a home. Do you live in an apartment? Do you live in a ramshackle abode? Surely one of these things must be true. But does your house have the ability to roll around? The folks houses in this set of photos doth have the ability to do as such. This is a set of photos taken by Alan W George that goes by the name “Wheeled Estate.” All of it’s below.

Here’s a few words from the artist / designer / photographer / collector extraordinaire Alan W George, on the subject of the set that we’re talking about:

San Francisco, California has the highest per capita rate of homelessness of any city in the United States. This fact can be attributed to many factors, including but certainly not limited to, the predominance of social liberalism, the year round reasonably mild climate and the relatively high cost of housing in the region. Homelessness manifests itself in a spectrum of living conditions, from living on the street with shopping cart and cardboard boxes to endless couch surfing. With this series of images I examine one of the more affluent homelessness conditions, vehicle (car/truck/RV/van/bus) camping. Specifically I typographically examine the vehicles which function as homes.

Isn’t it interesting how lowered the sense of worth becomes when a few wheels are attached to a house? On the other hand, when you take a peep at this whole set of photos here, they become definitely worthy of your eyeballs and mine.

Look at that green bus. Wouldn’t you like to drive it in the video game Twisted Metal? It would be such a fantastic adventure! Not to mention halve these other ones would be well-off containing hell of weapons and traps to blow up opponents.

Or to live in.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies On The Street category.

Just don’t get in the way of his digital drawing pad. He’ll kiss you so much! With his art. Bobby Chiu is a digital artist and designer. He’s worked on everything from teaching digital painting to designing Star Wars toys. And today, well! I’m going to show you some of the concept work he did for the Tim Burton version of Alice in Wonderland, just in time for… is the DVD out now? Probably it is.

Above you’ll see a couple of lovely flowers. The yellow one was done by Chiu exclusively, the red one for some reason is a collaboration between Chiu and fellow digital artist Peter Chan. They both work at the same place, Imaginism Studios, where you can see an extended look at all of their works.

So Imaginism Studios was hired to work on concept art for Alice in Wonderland. Below you’ll get a glimpse of some of the most fantastic lovelies you’ll ever put your AIW lovin eyeballs on. All of them down there done by Chiu. Then, after that set, there’s about a billion other images by Chiu, all done with his hands and heart. Very fabulous digital workings.

What you’re about to look at here comes from all over the place. When you get to be such a total badass in artworks that you teach, your works get spread out all over these internets like cool creamy butter. Sometimes you don’t even release them yourself! How dare! Some of the places the particular gallery you’re about to look at comes from are: Imaginism (of course), CGSociety, IStudios Blog, It’sArt Magazine, bobbychiu twitter, DeviantArt, and more I’m sure.

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

Yays the fellow called Kaws, also known as Brian Donnelly is in this month’s edition (May 2010) of Interview Magazine. The cover has Madonna with a red painted cross on an image of her face. In celebration, it’s time for a master-blaster of Kaws-related pics. Blaster. Master. A collection right here and now, below, in no particular order, for the greater good of understanding the simplicity of his genius superstrokes. It’s all in the single line. The one that goes from fat to thin. Doubled up, placed on the face. Placed on the glove. Perfection.

You see the x x eyes? They are key. Elements to also look for are the teeth, the row of the teeth, and the sharp, black curved line. Outline. Below you’re going to find photos that span the whole art career of Kaws, from when he began spraying that name, “KAWS,” to now, when he’s doing very well for himself with his own brand and lots of artshows and toys and products. Everything a design-minded artist individual could want in this modern world.

If you love Kaws, and are unaware of how to find the continued works of him and his companies, take a look at this limited list. It’s super fabulous:
http://www.kawsone.com/blog/ Donnelly’s blog on Donnelly’s site.
http://blog.honeyee.com/kaws/ Donnelly’s blog on Honeyee’s site.
BBCIceCream Kaws tag archive at blog written by Pharrell Williams and crew.
http://fuckyeakaws.tumblr.com/ infinite updates of random KAWS images

Now take a hefty set of clickings through this vast* set. *Vast, yet limited, when compared to the true group of Kaws creations that are in the world. Variations on a theme, and hundreds and hundreds of them. Maybe thousands. At least hundreds of variations, thousands of items. Domination of the street art conscious world. This planet anyway.

Peeks!

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

Although the title of this post suggests that you’d be crusing down the interstate in what’s about to be presented here, I wouldn’t recommend it. Right here we’ve got one frajabulous vehicle that’ been around for overy 60 years. In that time, this most excellent zoomer, the Piaggio “Ape”, has taken on only a few different shapes, and many many different colors. Popular to paint because of their small size and relative inexpensiveness compared to other smaller vehicles, these Apes don’t only come in black and white. Pronounced “ah-peh.” The name in Italian means the same and the flying insect bee. Fun. Lovely. Excellent.

These remind one very much of the Kei vans we did a post on a bunch of months ago. Both very small, very cute, and very versatile when it comes to the possibilities for their unique size and shape. The first thought that comes to mind when you see one of these Ape cars is that they must be delivering pizza.

If you agree OR don’t agree with that, just take a look at the pizza delivery pods that the folks from my home city drive to deliver their “Galactic Pizza.” Small, speedy, cute, and best of all electric powered. The Apes in this gallery could use a bit more electrics and a few fewer gasolines, but that’s not the point at the moment.

The point at the moment IS the color, the variety of shape and use, and the overall super neatness!

This set is made up of contributions from the following photographers: Alexie Ballyhoo (above), J Helland, Unique View, Homer, Blubrando, Maurizio Boi, Bayernernst, Classic Copenhagen, Joost ijmuiden, Jovike, JensKramer, Trigger Retro Road Test, Turtle 50, Stephan Schmatz, Schockwellenreiter, Ciccio Pizzettaro, Jörg Kantel, RayNYC, Nathalierokx, Brr1940, Jelltex, Loungerie, Filigiake, Gebiblu, ApeLover81, Spidey 1978, Lu81 (this is the same APE as the one pictured above, photographed by Lu81 instead, Dr LopTop, CamilleouZoé, Alberto DF, JHelland, Gerald Smythe, Mrs Moloko, LuisaLuisa, RayNYC, Stijn, ApeLover81, and DEFINITELY be sure to check out the flicker group Planet of the APEs, as it is an ever-expanding collection of these funky runners, and the folks in that group love love love it.

AND additionally, there’s been a tip-off to this fabulous APE flying around London serving fresh and fabulous hotness to unsuspecting, then satisfied customers: Brewed Boy! — check this blog and/or head down to the bottom of the gallery for a pic of BB’s custom-painted green APE.

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

Let me begin this post be suggesting that perhaps you were a child once. Let’s just go on that assumption. When you were a child, did you read books? I’ll go ahead and say yes. When you were a child, did you happen upon Golden Books? Probably you did. I’ll tell you someone else who had some Golden Books, illustrator designer Josh Cooley. He is a nerd, a movie fanatic, and a fantastic draw-er. He’s taken the time to mash up two utterly disparate items for the enjoyment of all: Golden Books for kids, and a collection of movie stills that couldn’t possibly be more inappropriate for that same group of kids. Check it out!

In a fabulous act of brilliance, Cooley, Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios, has taken the Golden Books aesthetic and applied it to his favorite scenes from action, science fiction, and horror films. As many super ideas go, this one began as a joke, something to spend some time on, something to get a few chuckles outta, something even to post on these internets.

But lo!

People yelled at Cooley, HEY! These are really rad! If I saw these all bound up in a book at a comic convention, I’d throw my money at it faster than I’d buy an original chunk of fossilized Alien goo! And you can take that to the bank! And so he did. Cooley took that idea to the bank, pulled out a few bucks, and made a book.

The book, having just been announced yesterday, goes by the name “Movies R Fun!”, with, as you can see, the word MOVIES being in kiddie play blocks, and the R being the same R as in R-Rated films. Clevah.

This book, as Cooley says, this book, will be available soon, at Comic-Con California this year, probably at the Alternative Press Expo (APE), and on Cooley’s lovely blogspot blog if you’re lucky. Inside you’ll find probably, more than likely, everything you see above and below, PLUS MORE.

Joy!

Take a peek and don’t hesitate to flip out over the radical nature of the images.

BONUS: Also included are a couple of the golden patterns used for framing of the single-page versions of these fabulous prints. Can you say CPU background time? Yessir.

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

So this guy right here, Eric Lane, he’s a designer and a photographer. Here at World Famous Design Junkies, our, but moreso my, stance on designing is always Collect First, Then Design. Not in the traditional sense of getting all the examples of your project that’ve been done in the past, nay! Though that’s important too, you must collect everything that catches your eyeballs. While we’re living in this age where you can get yourself a digital camera for under a weeks wage then take as many photos as you want, no holds barred, you’ve got to go nuts. Totally crazy with the image collecting! That’s why Eric Lane is awesome. He goes all over the place and collects like MAD.

The collection you’re looking at right now is Eric Lane’s photo journey through Seoul. You’ll notice something inspirational or genius in every single image. A mark here, a line there, an angle up there or down there, everywhere.

Also if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time on WFDJ that we’ve had a collection of photos from the Seoul area! We’ve been to Japan, 16 places in the USA, hip hopping around more than one place in Europe, but no Seoul! Hooray for worldwide traveling clickers!

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

The unbeheld. This is a photo set of the covered up works of glory all around the city of design. That’s right! This set of photos is called “Graffiti Cover Up,” and it takes place in urban Minneapolis. This project is executed by a friend and colleague of mine, also former classmate of mine at the MCAD, photographer Nicole Kuntz. She’s traveled the mean streets of upper, lower, left and right Minneapolis, searching for glorious works of art, finding them blocked out. But in that comes another form of loveliness, just another step in the evolution of a wall. A canvas, a wall, privately and publicly owned, for everyone to see, shown and covered up.

This is a set of five photos from a much larger set that will be shown soon at a fabulous show shown in the source! A group show by the name “F.R.E.S.H.” taking place at Altered Aesthetics in MPLS, MN.

Guerrilla art, hip-hop, punk rock, murals and more, F.R.E.S.H. will take a look at the origins, expressions and effects of street art as it has occurred in and beyond the gallery walls.

Opening will feature a LIVE PAINTING! by Rogue Citizen. Be sure to come and watch and place your bid on this silent auctioned one of a kind artwork!!

Opening Reception
Friday, May 7, 2010 – 7pm-10pm

Artists’ Discussion
Saturday, May 15, 2010 – 1pm-3pm

Altered Aesthetics
1224 Quincy St NE, Minneapolis, MN 55413
The Q’arma Building in NE Minneapolis
612.378.8888
contact-at-alteredesthetics.org

I’m sure there’s other artists there too, but our loyalty is with the K! Covered up graffiti is a wild thing to photograph. What a wild thing to collect. Brief upon it here! Such excellence.

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

Not the floaters you get in your eye when you’ve looked at the sun too long, but I wouldn’t be surprised if you racked this up to that. This is a photographic series of images collected with camera by photographer Denis Darzacq. It’s called “Hyper” and is a collection of 19 images of people… shopping?

Each of these images is a high-shutter-speed photographed moment in time. Darzecq picked the excellence of a grocery store for the environment and people who were good at jumping around for the subjects. If there were no gravity for humans, but gravity indeed for objects otherwise, this is what shopping would be like.

Make no mistake.

Each of these photos is being displayed at Exposition personnelle: Laurence Miller gallery, New-York, 2010. Contact them if you’re so hard into these that you must own one. Buy a really big print and put it in the grocery store that you actually own. Intensity!

20 West 57th Street
New York, NY 10019
( t ) 212.397.3930
( f ) 212.397.3932
contact@laurencemillergallery.com

Each of these photos were part of an extended series that one can only assume is ongoing forever, because who could stop such a fun series once it’s started? All you need is people to leap!

Or people who are able to levitate quite well.

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

Get yourself all readied up for some crash scenes, fellows and peoples, because here comes some. Illustrator/designer Scott Teplin outta New York City has a set of pictures he drew that you’re about to see. Called “Crashes : Graphite” and full of what you might expect given the nature of this description and the picture above. Crashes galore! And all in glorious white and gray tones. Experience the fabulousness of the detail, and don’t worry, there’s no human body parts in there.

Each of these 17 pictures is done strictly in pencil on fine white paper. If you look hard enough at your local bookstore, you might soon be seeing Teplin’s works hit the shelves. Posters, books, and whathaveyou. All of that fine stuff showing the extent of his illustrious career in illustration.

NOTE: in fact, there’s an example of that right over at X-ing Books where you can buy prints of his Alphabet series if you do so wish!

Now! For some bashed up vehicles! Enjoy the magled death!

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