See a bit more of CrazeOne’s artwork here, totally wickedly lovely and awesome:

To explain the name used for this secondary yet extremely important character in the Tron: Legacy movie, presented here is a mister Jonathan Rinzler, or J.T.Rinzler, aka Lucasfilm Executive Editor and author of books you’ve almost certainly seen or otherwise own: The Making of Star Wars, The Complete Making of Indiana Jones, and the more recent Making of The Empire Strikes Back. Marvel at this lovely story and giggle with joy at the subsequent joy felt by the kids of JTR:

“Friends told me about the fact that there’s this character Rinzler in the new Tron movie,” says Rinzler. “So I went online to see if I could figure out where they got the name. But I couldn’t find anything. There aren’t many Rinzlers in the States and it’s not a name that means anything, as far as I know… Then when Joe Kosinski came as a guest speaker I was actually on my way to the event before I realized this might be a chance to ask him. So I waited till after the q-and-a, went down to the front, and said I had a strange question but had to ask where he got the name, or where the writers got the name. And he said that he was sitting with the two writers working, and there was a book on the table ‘a Making of’ he said… ‘Oh yeah, it was Making of Star Wars by someone named Rinzler.’ So I said ‘that’s me’, thanked him, shook his hand and said I had to go out and buy a few action figures — needless to say, my kids are thrilled.”

Hooray! Now go see that freaking movie and make sure your eyes and ears are cleaned out because it’s a trip!

[Via Official Star Wars Blog]

The original link to this video is [here], the video you’re seeing there is under our account with a blanked out name to keep it secret and keep it safe should the squares ever come hunting for our friend 17. Dance in glorious concentric circles and walk backwards immensely, friends!

This post is about crayons! Hooray! When people grow from a child into an adult, some things resonate with them – usually these things are tastes, like a certain kind of cookie, or a favorite lucky number. Some other people keep things with them that are supposed to be stuck on to the everyday lives of children ONLY. One of these things is coloring crayons. But like the awesome lady who’s done the project we’re looking at here, you and I are totally inspired by crayons and the fact that the whole tool can be turned into the artwork. Fabulous.

This is a collection of hipster dinosaurs crafted from the essence of an everyday jurassic coloring book. Crafted with the magic of crayons. Internet superstar Molly23 created these over a period of a few weeks if I’m not mistaken, and they’re traveling about on their own through the fffounds and reddits of this world. Here they are all together. Give Molly23 a shout on her super blog if you love her so much. Then head on down to the gallery here and look at these magical dinosaurs.

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

Behold! Posters of everyday things by designer Hiller Goodspeed aka H.G. Goodspeed. Each of these is done for the heck of it in good spirits for the greatness of mundane items, subjects, and events. Goodspeed is my kind of fellow. Seems to me that Goodspeed has that tick, that need to create, every single day of the year in some way or another. Even in the mind, speaking in giggles to his fellow affiliate – wouldn’t it be funny if – and the rest is history. A stack of lovely posters for the greatness of simplicity.

This is a tiny wonderful collection of posters that go by the title “EPDED POSTERS” and is in all colors, all subject matters of the average USA citizen. Lovely for those who love to rock, and for those who’r going to the bus stop to have a soda pop.

If you’d like to see more works by Hiller Goodspeed, take a look at his fab portfolio site at http://hillergoodspeed.com/ and click all around and eventually hire him to make something amazing or just send him a stack of cash. I say that for most people, but I tell you what, I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it. The people I post here are the people you should rock with. I vouch for their fantastic skills.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies deconstruction 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

It’s been a while since there’s been an Aesthetic Apparatus update here at WFDJ, so here’s sort of a roundup rodeo. Below you’ll see a collection of AA’s posters from the last time there’s been an update on here about a rock poster. If that doesn’t make any sense to you, just say this is a big update about Aesthetic Apparatus with a bunch of posters in a gallery. Everything from beer to body organs. That about sums it up, yes? Guitars too. And horses. And powerful, distressed letters.

At the moment this post is posted, all the posters you see above and below can be purchased for right around $30 at the Aesthetic Apparatus website. They’ll be glad to hear from you, go forth and buy a whole lot of a big amount. For pre-Christmas. How about that? Before you spend all that cash, spend it.

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

Behold a collection of type sets created by Labor Kontor that’r all gone, all not there, nothing doing. Each of these blackens the negative space surrounding the letter rather than the letter itself, working with the space between the letter shape and wherever Labor Kontor decides to stop. These are the sorts of things you’ll be told to work on in your spare time if you’re a designer, not something to work on in any serious manner, mostly because it’s not easy to read. Certainly not at first. And people hate that! They want it now! But you’ve gotta keep em clicking in their brain, keep them smart. Make them read the second read.

A quote from Labor Kontor:
“Ich sehe was, was du nicht siehst und das ist Schrift.“
“I can see something you do not see and that is writing.”

This project goes by the name “Irritation” and is what Labor Kontor calls an exercise in “non-writing.” Words from Labor Kontor on the whole of this project:

Entwicklung einer „Nicht“-Schrift

Wir lesen, erfassen schwarz auf weiß erlernte Zeichen, so genannte Buchstaben, die sich optisch aneinanderreihen zu Strukturen, deren Sinn wir decodieren können, deren Aussage sich uns erschließt. Kommunikation durch visualisierte Sprache. Doch Kommunikation ist komplexer, mehr als es auf den ersten Blick scheint, mehr als diese Zeichen buchstäblich vermitteln. Vieles erschließt sich erst, wenn „zwischen den Zeilen“ gelesen wird.

Diese wichtige semantische Spielart der Kommunikation bildet den Ausgangspunkt für die Entwicklung der „Nicht“-Schrift. Die Betrachtungsweise richtet sich auf die verborgenen Formen der Zeichen, die normalerweise unsichtbaren Bereiche eines Buchstaben, die ihn ebenso ausmachen, wie die sichtbaren. Das heißt, die Bedeutung steckt nicht in der eigentlichen Zeichenstruktur, sondern in dem, was sie im Hintergrund freilässt. Der formale vordergründige Ausdruck dieser „Nicht“-Schriften zeichnet sich durch interessante, ornamental wirkende, jedoch nicht decodierbare Strukturen aus. Die zu vermittelnde Botschaft der Schriftzeichen befindet sich in einer hintergründigen Bedeutungsebene, bestehend aus Zwischenräumen und Punzen.

Insgesamt elf Studierende (Anna Arndt, Mareike Brandt, Mats Claußen, Nicole Gembries, Sabine Gratza, Stefanie Koch, Svenja Lüker, Diana Schmitz, Miriam Schneider, Laura Schunk, Carina Trapp) der Hochschule Niederrhein zeigen mit ihren Ergebnissen, das sich diese ungewöhnlichen Kommunikationsmittel in unterschiedlichen syntaktischen Ausdrucksformen erstellen lassen. Die Gestaltungsvielfalt der uns bekannten Schriftarten spiegelt sich auch in deren Umgebungsformen wider und bietet hier eine breite Basis für die „Nicht“-Schriften, ein Spektrum von kantig hart bis fließend weich, von statisch konventionell bis unorthodox und dynamisch.

Resultierend ergibt sich durch die „Nicht“-Schriften eine neue Art zu Schreiben, eine, deren Botschaft sich erst auf den zweiten Blick erschließt und die dadurch selbst simple Inhalte optisch interessant darzustellen vermag.

Fabulousness in project form.

Take a peek at each of these letter sets, then inquire if you’re interested in them with Labor Kontor to see if you can use them on your upcoming wild project. Or create your own, of course! Just make sure it can be read somewhere between the 2nd read and the 16th. That’s where the limit lies.

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

Charts, charts, charts, oh how the human brain loves charts. Here’s a couple of charts you’re going to love beyond all other charts today, I bet ya. There’s one for beers and one for rappers. Both are created by esteemed poster creation duo Pop Chart Lab – a collaboration between a book editor and a graphic designer. They’ve got two posters at the moment this post is written, and both of them are for super sale. They’ve got an amazing “how to care for” page (included in the gallery below) and a really really sharp looking site!

Both of these charts are not just fun, they’re totally informative. As any dude or lady grows into adulthood and becomes interested in beer (having finally decided it doesn’t just taste like old feet once you get used to it,) they inevitably become interested in the many different kinds. Sure, most people lose interest about 5 minutes after they realize there’s more kinds of beer than their favorite, Summit Extra Pale Ale, but some OTHER folks keep their brain in tune. This chart’s for them.

Then there’s the wildness of rapper names – unquestionably interesting. The excellence of these charts is trumped only by their names: “Grand Taxonomy of Rap Names” and “The Very Many Varieties of Beer.” Head on over to http://popchartlab.com/ to pick both of these posters up. They’ve got a “coming soon” sign on their T Shirts tab, maybe they’ll have some after you’re done taking a closer look at the posters below.

UPDATE from the dudes themselves: http://twitter.com/PopChartLab/status/25046463420 @popchartlab @design_junkies Thx for mentioning our posters. And t-shirts are indeed coming soon. 1st one in about two weeks. (1:07 PM Sep 20th via web in reply to design_junkies.)

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

Sometimes you’ve just got to make a box, put a pinhole in it, and take some photos. Sometimes you’ve got to do that and also use polaroid instant film. So it’s amazing and instant. And you’ve got to do is so well because you are photographer Janusz Wójcik and you’ve got an eye for photos and amazing photography. So you make a set of these photos and they’re really rockin and are all about color and arrangement of people in the photos relative to the media you’re accessing.

Janusz Wójcik is a photographer who shoots in many formats and loves loves loves to shoot girls (with the camera.) In poses of simplicity. Take a peek at Janusz Wójcik‘s portfolio for a good look at a the rest of the Janusz Wójcik collection of photos.

But now look at these pinhole polaroids. They are fabulous.

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

Since we’ve never done a roundup post or a top 10 post or anything like that on World Famous Design Junkies before, this is going to act as sort of a long-range list. This right here is the first ever 2 year top ten posts OF ALL TIME World Famous Design Junkies post. What you’re about to view is the strangeness of these internets. Some of this list makes perfect sense, some of it you might never have guessed. Behold!

10. All The Little Figgies a project by illustrator Joep Gerrits including two posters filled to the brim with super-simplified characterizations of characters from famous movies.

9. Under Water Photographer James Cooper presents a set of photos that include many dunks under the blue, many of which took off on their own, like the spraypaint blasting into the water photo you see above. Everyone loves a moment of brilliance.

8. Ghost in the Photo Machine A collection of photos taken of photos on modern versions of reality. That’s people holding up OLD photos right on top of the real world, lining them up pretty darn close to the same place you’d have seen the objects in the first place. Lots of contributors, lots of amazing things to be seen.

7. Doryu 2-16 Pistol Camera It’s an intense investigation into the strange and wonderful world of the 16mm DORYU 2-16 pistol camera. Used at one point, for a very short period in history, by the Japanese police. For real.

6. Lost and Found The longest lasting and most updated post on WFDJ by FAR, this is a post full of the weirdest, funniest, and most viral images from everywhere around these internets. It’s basically one giant gallery full of firecrackers. The reason the internet is fun, all of it right here in one post. But NOTE: some of these images are amazing and designtastic, while others are just terrible. But shareable!

5. Star Wars Portraits – Victorian Style A project by illustrator / animator Greg Peltz that includes several Star Wars characters painted to look like they didn’t exist so very long long ago, instead existing in Victorian times – with a super bonus couple of illustrations of ol’ D.V. and his kids in American Civil War times.

4. Anybody Mario A full-fledged game by the name of “Super Mario Brothers Crossover” designed by Exploding Rabbit. This game’s amazing not just because you can play the entirety of Mario Brothers on your laptop, but you can play it as any of the following characters: original Mario, Mega Man from Mega Man, Samus from Metroid, Link from Zelda, Bill R. from Contra, or Simon from Castlevania!

3. Batgirl is Now Prince A limited edition concept project by cartoonist / illustrator Cliff Chiang, these record-cover sized prints (12″ x 12″) are part of a set of four 80′s record covers pulled into comicdom by popular Marvel and DC characters.

2. The Big Golden Farting Bull Sculpture artist Chen Wenling’s political sculpture features a devil-man Bernie Madoff being smashed by the economy he helped to depress (represented here by a giant golden bull.) Interestingly enough, this post became popular right around the time Madoff was thrown in jail for a very, very long time.

1. Rare Star Wars Photos You had to have seen this coming. Of COURSE Star Wars is the most popular subject on any blog, especially when its dug up and analyzed by addicts of both fine design and wackiness. This post contains a trove of little-seen Star Wars photos collected from limited edition books and the people who were on the set when the original trilogy was being made and filmed. Lots of fun in here.

So what does this tell us? What can we LEARN from this? Things like “never underestimate the power of pop” or “with Star Wars you’re good to go.” But overall, what is it? Good writing? A little bit. Amazing pics? Yes. Fantastic design? You bet. The total package of all these things presented in a friendly environment? Indeed.

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

The following is a project by designer Brad Tober that deals with a very clear ideation process, taking a source, taking from it its most basic elements, and using those elements to create something brand new. I myself learned about this process by my genius former professor Piotr Szyhalski (and certainly still think about it and use it every single day.) Brad Tober uses this process to create “Cinematic Visualizations” : scenes from movies transformed into circles of varying color, size, density, and location on a grid!

The example you see above is from the movie Kill Bill (volume 1) and covers the entire House of Blue Leaves sequence (basically the last long scene where Uma cuts apart the Crazy 88.) As you can see it’s reduced to basic visual elements.

Read these words by Tober which function as a basic outline of the project:

As an exercise in translating and transposing various media, this project involved the visualization of several scenes from cinematic works in an alternative format. Inspiration was taken from new media theorist Lev Manovich’s proposal, in The Language of New Media, that a digital (or digitized) film “can be defined as a function that, given the horizontal, vertical, and time location of each pixel, returns its color. [...] For a computer, a film is an abstract arrangement of colors changing in time, rather than something structured by ‘shots,’ ‘narrative,’ ‘actors,’ and so on.” This interpretation of the digital moving image poses a particular question: if a digital film can be considered a visualization of a set of data, is it possible to reverse-engineer that visualization to arrive back at a set of data which can then be visualized in a different way?

These visualizations track the movement of events—key people, groups of people, and objects—within the image frame and through time in four long-take scenes from cinematic works. These scenes were chosen for their likelihood to produce interesting visualizations as a result of their extended uncut camera movement (or the appearance thereof). Each event is distinguished by a unique color, and time is represented through the use of size and opacity: the smallest and least opaque points occur earliest in the scene, while the largest and most opaque occur latest.

Super fancy. Below behold a couple more, then head on over to Tober’s portfolio website to see the entire collection.

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

Boogie Nights
Opening

Children of Men
Car Ambush

We live in a state of flux. This year, 2010, there are people doing all sorts of work. Whatever they can get, in basically every facet of trade and service. While only a few years ago I was informed by a professor at my college that there was no way a designer in my generation would be able to work exclusively off-line, with no internets, now it’s apparent to me that there’s a shit-ton of people doing just that, and not only in trades like carpentry. Let me show you a guy who, although he doesn’t appear to work exclusively non-computer, definitely has a heavy handle on working without the mouse clicker. This is the hand-made lettering work of designer Jordan Jelev, aka The Labelmaker.

Above and below you’ll see a large portion of the hand-lettered wine (and other food) labels that Jelev has made over the past few years. Magnificent, excellent, and each one of them unique. Jelev is creating some first-level-creation here, that being design that’s not at all or to a very small degree derived from other works. I read a quote the other day that compared using type to using Lego blocks and creating lettering to using clay. Both create magnificent structures. Keep both in mind for your future!

Some words on the presentation of his labels from Jelev:

I think that in the Digital Era of XXI century where evrything is synthetic, machine made, electronic etc it is really interesting and inspiring not only for the creatives to do something entirely hand crafted like Calligraphy and Lettering. I know this is not the fastest way to make a wine label and I know it is somehow out of time, but I am sure that my effords in calligraphy, lettering and custom type design are makeing my work more recognizable and distinguished.
… and it is a great plesure to do this!

Thank you very much for making such excellent works of letter, Labelmaker. Continue your works into the future for ever and ever. I demand it!

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

I’ve always liked bunny rabbits, those cutest of little land mammals that lived under the sheds of my childhood neighborhood, driving everyone up a wall with their eating of flowers and greenery. Oh how they were hated by everyone else! I though (and think) it’s cute to see little nibbles here and there and everywhere, and yes, since you asked, I AM a gardener as well. But most people want them to die, especially people who plant gardens and wear real fur coats. You know who doesn’t want them to die? Designer Dave Whitley. He’s a bad mother and he knows that bunny rabbits can be bad mothers too. Battletime begin now!

In this post there are three posters, each of them with a carrot turned into a weapon, printed simply with a couple colors on a textured color background. Grenade, pistol, knife.

Some words from Whitley on this project:

Design Against Fur My entry for the 2010 ‘Design Against Fur’ competition held by the Fur Free Alliance. I wanted to convey the message of cruelty towards rabbits without directly showing blood, guts, or rabbits.

Design Brief: ‘Design a creative, compelling poster or animation that delivers the compassionate message that the wearing of fur is cruel and unnecessary. We want the modern world to celebrate all animals and not victimize them by killing them to wear their skins – and we want you to help us make that happen.’

I must mention that I have a bunny in my apartment home right now. Her name is Santi Gold and she is a vicious bitch. These weapons show how bunnies can get right up in your face if you try to take their skin off of them, right up in your face with their jumping and their powerful chomping, human flesh chomping teeth.

Also the posters look nice!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies destruction 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 wise character on a TV show once said: “Why tip someone for a job I’m capable of doing myself? I can deliver food. I can drive a taxi. I can, and do, cut my own hair. I did however, tip my urologist, because I am unable to pulverize my own kidney stones.” This is the exact same concept that is going on in the photographed objects going on here in this project by artist / designer / photographer Ben Innes. They are called “Separations” and they are exploded objects held up by string and photographed against single-color backgrounds. They make a person understand the nature of the object in a way one, even one who uses these objects every day, does not think about.

Components. Many, many components. I am not capable of making these objects.

Because these objects are complicated, so complicated beyond what even an everyday user understands, made of components created individually in factories and by hand or by nature or whatever else they were made by (elves?), they are valuable. So very valuable. They represent teamwork and sticktoitiveness! And Ben Innes knows this. He is brilliant.

He is also a young master of Pop Art. I know. I talked to him before. He’s the real deal. Everything he touches, people say “oh FRICK I wish I would have done that first, DARNIT.” You know what that means? It means he is a modern artist in the Pop family.

Above and below you will see Ben Innes’ “Separations” collection. He has a similar project called “Tapes” in which he finds significant recordings on tape-related media, takes them apart, and photographs them in a similar manner. In addition to these two projects, Innes has created a one-off book called “32 Separations” in which he collects works from both “Separations” and “Tapes”, wrapping them up in one very formal looking hard-bound book.

To see “Tapes” and other fabulous projects by Ben Innes, take a walk on over to his webpage and click around a little bit. You can also contact him from there if you want, or just email him using this thing right here: mail @ beninnes.com.

NOTE: Ben Innes attended the same college as yours truly, the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), during several of the same years, and (thusly?) I must elect to add, on a personal note, that he’s a cool dude.

SUPER BONUS: This project is also posted at GOOD – that means it’s totally awesome, super, officially boss in the lower left of the USA, and has the thumbs up from a real-life in-hand magazine. Strange world we live in.

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

Let me show you something drawn on black. Then more on white right afterward. Some colors glittered all around, and like the title of this post suggests, some fatboy outlines. These are the illustrative works of Tin&Ed. They’ve got their eye on perfection whist living the fabulous life of whimsy. This is the line you’ve got a real option of riding your bike on if you’re going to function in this hipster aesthetic world. It’s like a bio-dome of confident light-bike speeding. Don’t run into the wall! Tin&Ed don’t.

What does this remind you of? I think it’s a bit of some forward-thinking psychedelic. Look at these colors and set them side-by-side with Cream’s “Disraeli Gears.” Hot. Let’s make a diptych. I hope Tin&Ed get to design a Gnarls Barkley album. Awesome.

The images you see above and below are from several different projects, each of them featured in the Tin&Ed online portfolio.

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

Every once in a while, and by every once in a while I mean every time a chance happens upon you, you’ve gotta make a Star Wars photo post. You must especially do this when you’ve been collecting rare Star Wars photos in your pocket and have an overabundance of them and just gotta unload them all unto the world. This is one of those times.

You may remember one of our other Star Wars Rare posts, the most popular of which of course has been “Rare Star Wars Photos”, no fancy titles or nothin. That’s not what this sassy planet dance is all about.

It’s about collecting, rounding up, foldering together, and spacing out. Star Wars is such a thick thing, such a dense object, that this sort of thing will never end. There’ll always be another dude or lady who’d been on or around the sets of the movies taking quick pics. Thustly, here’s another medium sized bunch o’ them. Peek’t'em!

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

If you’re anywhere near my age, young or old of heart, you “remember” the Pokemon craze when it first exploded unto the western world. Pokemon Red, the less-cool Pokemon Blue, the ccg card game, the restaurant toys, all of it very fun. There was a cartoon, too! But none of it really went very much in depth, into the personal lives of the characters. Why would it? It’s a friggin kids cartoon. But did you ever notice, you heavy-hitting fans of the Pokemon world, did you ever notice that the main character, Ash, was a bastard child? Truly the world was not ready for this storyline, and thustly it was never explored. Until NOW!

Designer / illustrator / writer / cartoonist Maré Odomo had a super idea. It’s called “Letters To An Absent Father” and it’s all about the main protagonist of the Pokemon original series, Ash, and the idea that not only do you never see his father, he simply isn’t in the family picture. It’s totally a bad social situation.

Odomo explains in a nutshell:

The first strip was originally created for Cory Schmitz’s video game art + culture magazine, EXP. Not to be confused with Matthew Kumar’s exp. The first strip expanded into 4. I had to start including my name because they were being passed around without giving me credit. I’ve left the original strips as they are because they show my growth, which is more important to me than consistency. Also, I am too lazy to redraw them.

The 4 strips kept growing and now there are 12.

I felt bad about making a print-only comic so that’s why I made the wallpaper. It’s based off of strip #7 (the print-only one). #8, which is animated, was created as another little Thank You to my online fans. Since, you know, you can’t print out animated gifs.

You can view all of these strips below, plus there’s a mini-comic which you can buy with your money! Not only does it come in regular edition, there’s a customized version too!

Letters To An Absent Father
MINI-COMIC NOW AVAILABLE!
4.25 inches x 4.25 inches
Fits in your Nintendo DS cartridge case!

$3 for the comic, but for $13, I’ll draw you a picture on the notebook paper!

Several of these customized comics (with a little sketch) are shown below as well. Enjoy this expanding of a universe thoroughly. It is always a strange and interesting journey to do so.

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

Let me show you this sketch journal. It’s done by a fellow named Ian Hands (cool name, friggin awesome!) who’s also known as DEPT H. This is one of several of his sketchbooks done in mixed medias, all sorts of marker, pen, paint, ink, pencil, all done in such a detailed and layered fashion that one can scarcely consider it a book of simple sketches. Nay I say, though they may be jammed healthfully in with a collection of sketchbooks, the contents of these pages are no mere sketches. Masterworks on tiny pieces of paper they are, truly colorfully delicious, arranged in a way so very tasty they be.

This particular sketchbook is titled “Avebury 2004,” though weather that implies that it was done in a certain year or not, only Hands doth truly know.

DEPT H is a multifaceted magic-maker I must say, incase you wanted to explore further. DEPT H can be contacted by emailing ianhands @ dept-h.co.uk and if you’d like to continue looking for newer works than these, I suggest you take a run on over to the DEPT H website at http://dept-h.co.uk/ – quite quaint!

Now rip your way through these pages. Devour them and explore them for all eternity, for they are dense, heavy with meaning, and pretty beyond any mere scribblings.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies hand writing 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.

Lots and lots of skeletons and the occasional panda bear. That’s what you get when you thumb through your collection of prints made by the most amazing Jose Pulido aka Mis Nopales Art. You shall see so many skeletons that you will celebrate. Celebrate with all your death with Joke Pulido and dance, yes dance the night away! You will meet a serenading skeleton, a butterfly catching skeleton, Darth Vader skeleton, skeleton aboard an armadillo… wait! Darth Vader skeleton! Yes, the pop is in there for real.

But not only pop! This collection of skeletons, henceforth known as Calaveras (aka skulls), do all the fun stuff, all the thangs a skullhead might want to do, including impersonate the living.

Each of these, or at least most of these, is a print or a template for a print printed by Mis Nopales Art. Jose Pulido is a heavily prolific printmaker and he loves to skull them out! A whole bit ton of tiny prints for the whole world! Yes indeedy.

PLUS there’s some oddballs in there. Aka non-skully items also drawn by Pulido that show he’s not just a one-trick skelehorse. He’s got skills. Skeleskills, pandaskilla, luchidoreskills.

If you’d like to get yourself one of these skullys for your very own, take a ride on over to the Nopales Etsy shop, or contact Pulido by emailing him through his Etsy contact page. You’ll have to be logged in if I’m not mistaken.

AND AND AND if you’re in the southern California area, you could take a peek at his works up close at TWO count them TWO upcoming shows — Renegade Craft Fair Los Angeles, July 24+25 AND Renegade Craft Fair San Francisco, July 31-Aug 1. Get there!

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

Illustrator Andrew Archer has a rather specific look going on. His lines live within one another, swooping and dipping next to and on top of one another, like liquid moving with such fluid motion, yet like oil and water they must never mix! The colors are mute, the eyes are deadly serious. He’s a master at the age of 24, which, when you live in New Zealand, makes sense because what else are you going to do, go fishing? There is always the danger of being lost in perfect weather and sunshine freeness. But that’s not what Archer did! He’s right here ready to go, and he’s up onit!

EDIT: NOTE also his placement of some rather-sharply shaped 3D letters and numbers in several of these illustrations. That rocks. Often illustration-heavy designers will either fall back on or just exclusively use typography added in post. It’s a completely amazing skill to be able to draw those characters in there in such a perfect way. Truly

Here’s a couple words from Archer on his birth and living place, New Zealand:

I’ll admit, it’s been a hard time becoming a full time illustrator on a tiny island at the bottom of the world but since NZ is actually ahead of nearly everyone in the world timezones, i have used this to my advantage to read the future and beat deadlines like no-other.

Indeed! And you know what that means – he’s for hire! That’s right, you can commission the fantastical works of this superman of inks, and I bet he’d be happy to help you! Contact Archer at andrew@andrewarcher.com or on Skype [andrewcalme]. Be sure to check his http://andrewarcher.com/ portfolio for updates on work, too.

Now! Let’s take a look at some new and selected works. Below and above you’ll see works done by Archer mostly within the past year, but also spanning back to his “start” in illustration in 2006. I say “start” because everyone is an illustrator in some form or another, they’re just good or terrible, that’s all. Archer just happens to be very very amazing. Peep it out!

ALSO note that a few of the illustrations have information attached that’s pretty important to the image it’s connected to. If you’re going to spread the Archer love, it’d be awesome if you kept that info attached.

Thaaanks.

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

Isn’t it amazing how some movies can be a bit hit in the theaters, then once they’ve been on people’s home movie shelves for a few years they peter out- while some movies are crap in the theater, then get watched forevermore? This is the cult classic, of course, and someone’s got their fingers right in the bloody pulse of this situation as it pertains to design, that being Toronto based designer Ibraheem Youssef. He’s rolling right beside these internet-famous designers who turn their eyeballs toward self-promotional work in the form of cult classic illustration. Here he’s done several that I might have passed over except for one thing…

INCEPTION. Yes, he’s got a couple of the classics here with Lebowski and Scarface, but then he tells us that when he went, just a few days ago, to this new film Inception, that he couldn’t resist! This is newness. This is in the vein of Tyler Stout, a dude who, once the theaters got wind of him making such fantastic illustrations for older films, began hiring him to create posters for limited releases of newer ones.

In so many words and a few dollars and pennies, you can purchase cult-classic status now, if only for a little while. Of course the true cult classic attains its status only through time and circumstance. But the situation is there! And it’s here, too, in some really super neat illustrative posters. Peek em out.

And take note — the mazes in the Inception poster work!

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

Mister James Marshall, aka DALEK, is a master of lines, color, and little green space men. He’s been perfecting his sharpness and colortastic explosigazms since he first spewed forth this Space Monkey in 1995. In 2007, he began using his real name and had a flabjabulous show at Jonathan Levine gallery. From there, the Monkey only appeared here and there, if at all. In these 5 new paintings we’ve got here in the gallery below, there’s no monkeys in the least bit! The power remains. Perhaps they’re just hiding.

Since I began studying this modern art segment about 6 years ago or so, Dalek’s always, ALWAYS been in the list of the “cool guys” to keep up on news with. Always he’d be in the hypercolor limelight.

And he’s not done, no, no way!

Below and above you’ll find 5 new works as blasted from Dalek himself. For more updates as they happen, visit Dalek’s official http://dalekart.com/ website and online portfolio.

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

When you’re insane about design, as all of us here at World Famous Design Junkies are, you bet your biffy, you carry around a tiny camera in your pocket and photograph everything in your wake, most especially those things that blow your mind for one reason or another. Design moments, wild moments in everyday strange life in writings or color or shape or form, anything that inspires the eyeballs. Here is a collection of these photos of which I speak. From a flea market in North West Minnesota to a Target store in Minneapolis.

John Travolta, Professional Pilot

The ever-epic photo of Chewbacca feeling up Princess Leia (also to be seen in our ULTRA AMAZING collection of rare Star Wars photos) put to good use on a gig poster

The wording “A Most Liveable Community” in a community that would never, in a million years, word it as such (Saint Cloud, Minnesota)

Toilets in a basement bar being re-done

A folder of collectable Desert Storm cards at the flea market in Wright County

Bucky O’Hare action figures in their original bubble packaging

A custom-painted toilet seat cover

A personal message of pride to the world made in order to sell postcards in frames

Wolverine channels Rambo

Pogs, lots of pogs

Hand-painted corn dogs sign, with bonus “FREESYS” note

Record cover peeking out of backpack

ESPECIALLY no U turn

Fabulous choices in the jukebox at Psycho Suzi’s biker bar and restaurant

Re-painted facade at the 400 bar (where a friend and I once saw YTCracker!)

Clean broken sign

Sign covering a sign

A sweet ramp

21st Century Bank with futuristic font

Faced spraypaint cans

DESPITE license plate

That rock at the Subway in Osage

Cowlicks to Curls

Vandalized OBEY sticker

Drink fountain with both Pepsi and Coke (as far away from eachother as possible)

August Schell cap from New Ulm, Minnesota

Disco ball at Loring Pasta Bar in Dinkytown

UFFDA8 uff-da license plate (Norwegian slang)

Pile of weapons made of duct-tape

Dangerous cat warning written in chalk

Frattalone heavy machinery brand name

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