Let me say a quote from the movie “Raiders of the Lost Ark” : “Look at this. [holds up a silver pocket watch] It’s worthless. Ten dollars from a vendor in the street. But I take it, I bury it in the sand for a thousand years, it becomes priceless! Like the Ark. Men will kill for it; men like you and me.” Truly that is a wise quote. There is another reality to that situation too, that being the sand-beaten and abandoned houses and buildings left alone by people, left to rot, left to fall. They’re both worth nothing to some people and are, again, priceless to others. Designer / photographer Kenneth Sabbar of PLUSGOOD Media is this sort of person, and constantly on the hunt.

Above and below you’ll see the extent of the PLUSGOOD Ghost Town photo collection to the date this post was originally posted. If it’s much later than that, go on over to PLUSGOOD Media to see if there’s lots more. All of these photos are collected in the deserts of Nevada.

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

By definition, a sketch is a drawing not meant to be finished. But lo! Look at whose moleskin is filled with sketches taken way beyond the average sketchy lightness a sketch would be sketched. This is the newest set of pages from the moleskin of illustrator Andres Guzman. Look at all the color and shading and blacks and whites and everything going on oh my god look at it all! Super amazing on every single page.

Paint and watercolor and ink and pencil, all the illustration you can chomp on. To see more works by Guzman take a peek on over to his Guzman blogspot.

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

How many steps do you take in getting your face erased in the morning? A lot? None? Here’s a guy whose done a project three times, each of them a charcoal drawing on vellum, each of them taken through a process of nothing to life to death, all the while displayed at Galerie Pangee in Montreal. This project is interesting in that when I first glanced at it, I expected the face to go from black to full, full as in an instantly recognizable face. But nay! It goes from start to start! This is a project of deterioration called “(TRANS) FORMATIONS.”

This artist here, Jason Botkin, he’s cool. He’s got a sense of the ghost in the machine. That is, the ability to capture moments, time lengths, even people’s souls, in a video or still camera. Of course it’s all false in the sense that we can’t converse with it, we can’t interact with it the same way we’d of been able to if we’d been there while it was the way we’re looking at it through the camera now, but all the same, it’s still here for us to look at. And the whole idea’s stronger for it.

These drawings still exist somewhere in their “finished” state, but I don’t think you’re going to find them at the Pangee anymore. Look below the gallery for the three videos of the pieces that were displayed alongside them during their tenure at the gallery, sitting side-by-side as shown in the preview pic above.

Take a look through the gallery below and if you’d like to get in contact with Jason Botkin, email him at jjbotkin@yahoo.com or go to his website to see more of his works in their natural habitat http://jasonbotkin.com/ and tell him I think he’s cool.

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

So. The internets hath provided the world with some nicely-produced movie footage of a Mortal Kombat story in short-film format. It’s meant to be spread virally, which I’m sure it’ll do, and is doing, and it’s meant to create EXCITEMENT – which it IS doing. The clip you’re about to see is made by a … dance video director?! Kevin Tancharoen, who, because he was tentatively signed on to do a “caught in pre-pre-production limbo” Mortal Kombat, decided to make his own short, teaser version of what the film might look like. This is that. Many/most of the people in the short donated their time (maybe to get the chance to be in the final version), and the entire thing cost $7,500. And it’s gruesome. Totally gruesome.

It’s gonna be like a police movie!

Or maybe like a kung fu… gore… MORTAL KOMBAT.

Now the MOST and MOST FACTUAL information on this situation you’re going to get, you’re going to get from an interview done the day after this clip was released between the entertainment news source Collider and mister Tancharoen.

In that interview, Tancharoen begins:

KT: No. They [the studio, or anybody involved with the video game] did not [know about the mini-movie]. (Laughs) This was something I did completely on my own. However, there is a little bit of a tie-in, because I happen to be friends with Oren Uziel. And since we’re friends, I just called him up and said “Listen, I want to do this. This is what I have in mind. I want it to be contained, because I am not a studio with endless amounts of cash.” Then we started storyboarding from there, and started calling my friends, and started pulling as many favors as I possibly could. And I was thrilled that they all said yes. (Laughs)

Collider notes that Oren Uziel wrote the short. He’s currently listed on IMDb to write the next Mortal Kombat movie at Warner Bros. Tancharoen continues:

Now like I said, because I am such a fan of the Mortal Kombat series, I know there’s a lot of concern about the mysticism and the special powers and all that kind of stuff. Well, like I said, this is really designed — the short so far is really designed like a prologue to the movie. Now, in a movie version, I am going to have that mysticism there, but it has to be done in a very tasteful way. I wouldn’t like it too campy or too cheesy. I know this is a weird analogy, but it’s the best one I can think of right now. It’s kind of like when in Harry Potter, there’s two universes that coexist with each other. There’s the real world, and then you get on the train and then you go to Hogwart’s, and that’s where all the magic is.

That’s all I needed to hear. Make it AVP quality (low) or better, and I’d even go so far as to see it in the theater! All I need is a tiny bag of popcorn and one of those GIANT GULPS of soda they have at the theater now, one free refill!

Oh and… and…

This clip features the following actors and actresses: Michael Jai White who I knew played “Gambol” in the Dark Knight, remembered played SPAWN in that one movie called SPAWN, but had no idea was in The Toxic Avenger Part II – wowie!, Jeri Ryan whom you MUST know as “7 of 9″ from the Star Trek series Voyager, plus about a million TV shows, martial artists Lateef Crowder who is going to be in a 2010 movie about the other hugely popular fighting game TEKKEN, Ian Anthony Dale also in TEKKEN, and Matt Mullins who has done lots of great stuff, but whose proudest moment should be, I think, having been an actor in the 1996 video game AREA 51.

So peek at the clip and peek at this gallery clipped out of the clip and clip your clip with a clip and GET OVER HERE and clip clop clip. Yay Mortal Kombat!

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

Hey child, get out your powerful magic player of the music. That’s right, it’s the boombox. It’s the thing you get out and put a tape in there in the tape deck and BAM, you’ve got such a sound you can bring with you and blast all over everyone’s face in the streets. And all it takes to run it is 12 double-D batteries. Get some batteries! And look at this fabulous photo project by Lyle Owerko. It’s called, appropriately, “The Boombox Project” and he even whipped up an excellent nutshelled history of the box too! It’s all here, all of it.

So this fantastic artist, photographer, designer, cool guy Lyle Owerko took a whole load of photos of fantastic boomboxes and here they are in this classic set! And from his massive research bank comes this little diddy too!

The Boombox Project

A Visual Timeline of the Era of the Boombox

Exactly when the term ‘boombox’ hit the streets is not known for sure. In the United States, department stores apparently began using the term in marketing and advertising as early as 1983. Street slang linguists pin the term down at 1981, and define the boombox as “a large portable radio and tape player with two attached speakers.” Initially, it became identified with certain segments of urban society, hence adopting epithetic nicknames, like ‘ghetto blaster,’ and ‘jam box.’ But as the masses began to embrace these gargantuan conglomerations of electronics, lights and chrome plated gadgetry an inherent form of portable entertainment and expression was born. The boombox as it has evolved is now an icon of popular culture, it has been referenced by rockers, poppers, hip-hoppers, and graffers alike. It is a symbol of rebellion and a way to shout your message at the system. Turn up the volume on your boombox, whatever the size, and let the capstan wheels of the tape deck drive a favorite mix-tape to life… As the defiant voice of punk rock legend, Joe Strummer sang “This is radio clash using audio ammunition…”

The grids, the circles, the rectangles. These fabulous boxes of pure energy deserve all the looks and glances they get. And when they’re blasting fantastic mixtapes and such, they’re even better. But they’re also fantastically lovely just to peek at, so let’s do some peekin.

And I bet you’d be pretty pumped up if you could do something neat with these images, right? I bet you would. So check it out – Owerko hooked himself up with a fresh deal over at that gelaskins website where they sell skin of the mac. Check that out, download some backgrounds, click around and have a little fun, [here], but first look at these boomers below.

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

There ain’t no two way about it, some pigs just have tattoos. And there is more than one ways about how they got that way. The piggie you see above is one inked by a mister Andy Feehan, who had a rather interesting obsession with drawing the little buggers before he found the perfect combination, the solution to his unstoppable tick tack, that being the application of ink to the pig. And thus it was done. Below you’re going to find quite a few pigs tattooed by artist Wim Delvoye, who has made it a large part of his art career to do just this sort of thing, along with a bunch of unknowns as well.

There is a question of ethics, but since I’m almost certain Dolvoye and Feehan knocked the pigs out while they were cutting ink into their skin, I think it’s just a lovely activity.

Now the spraypainting of cows, on the other hand, that’s pretty gross.

As I’m sure you’re aware, the skin texture and softness and basically everything else is very similar to that of a human being. Thus, tattoos on a pig act very similar to the tattoos a person gets. Of course, as the pig is generally a subject of some joking existence, the tattoos on a pig are generally made in parody, as you’re about to see.

Below you will notice pigs that are alive, pigs that are stuffed and posed, pig skins that have been taken off of the pigs after they’ve kicked the bucket, and pig skins in frames. Any pig skin OFF of the pig is from Wim Delvoye, he is the only person who inks the live pig, skins them when they are dead, and displays the skin in a frame or naked. Unless you count the movie GOZU, in which they do the same thing, only with humans instead. Blech.

ALSO, as Jane Rainwater kindly reminded me, tattoo artists that generally work on human beings also sometimes practice on the skin of a pig. This is a reason why I’m baffled that I was only able to round up the small amount of images that I have here.

Personally, I am ashamed at my inability to find a photo of a pig with the Motorhead dog inked on its back. I assume it isn’t made yet now that I’ve searched, so this post is also a call out to all you artists to get that sow and sow that sow a nice one, metal style.

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

Hello all you fun-loving satanists – keep your crappy rat-made tats. The following is a collection of images of upside-down crosses. This is not a collection of evil for satan’s sake. It is a collection of the tendency for images of inverted crosses to be wild and weird. It takes a special situation for a person to decide to flip a cross on its head because of the controversial reaction it might make. However, as you’ll be quick to see, many of these images are personal – images of flipped crosses written on hands, on desks in schools, and more, just for some sort of self-fulfilling need. But then again, they did photograph them.

Indulge in this weirdness, and stray not from the path of righteousness.

The following collection is made up of contributions from this list of generous donors: Rev. Xanatos Satanicos Bombasticos, LadyLadyLadyy, The Rev. Steve, LaruaLynn Patrick, John Hatfield, Criminal Intent, Toothpaw (illustration on text page), Swampy, Scott Prince, Klis, Angel D, Eggybird, Shbnggrth, Cemtry, Chwy, AntiMax, Hotspot O, PizDrunx, Yissah, BuChoy, Leo Curran, Jansenh, IEat Glamour, and Kahlerisms.

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

Here’s how you carve out your little piece of the money. You find your nitch FIRST. Then you think about what they do. Crazies. Hippies. Weirdos. They need to feed their cats. Then need to make their cats into crazy cats. So what should you do? You should make a catnip brand called Cosmic Catnip. And put a crazy cat on the bag. Crazy cat!

This bag of catnip is real, and it’s at the reptile store. It’s at the Twin Cities Reptiles store in Saint Paul. If you can stand smelling a bunch of snakes for a short period of time, take a walk through there! They’ve got a ton of lizards and turtles and grasshoppers and such, plus a few hairy animal supplies.

I am not even kidding you. That is the name of the solo show happening right now by artist / designer / wildman WK Interact. His name might be just “WK” now cause that’s what it says on the ads, but still, “How to Blow Yourself Up!” That’s what’s up. In this post is a basic rundown of everything that’s in the show. I recommend definitely GOING to the show though also because everything is so sculptural and needs to be seen IRL.*

*IRL = in real life. Reals.

WK
How to Blow Yourself Up
Opening Reception
November 7th / 8-11PM
November 7th – December 5th

SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS GALLERY
1331 W. SUNSET BLVD
LOS ANGELES 90026
t.213.213.0078
INFO@SUBLIMINALPROJECTS.COM
TUES — FRI: 1-6 PM
SAT: NOON – 5PM

Keep your eyes open especially for ingredients such as Madness and Intensity

99 Crosby Street
Mixed Media Assemblage
(Salvaged Door, Caution Barracade, Electrical Socket, Wires, Acrylic,
Enamel and Mayhem)
82” h x 68” w

“Emergency”
Mixed Media Assemblage
(Former Studio Door, Chainsaw, Boxing Mask, Air Pump, Alarm, Mischief,
Readiness, and Revolution)
89”H x 38” W

“Trap”
Mixed Media Panel Assemblage
24”H x 72” W

“Double Attack”
Mixed Media Panel Assemblage
24”H x 72” W

“Lock Yourself”
Mixed Media Panel Assemblage
24”H x 60” W

“Jump Out”
Mixed Media Panel Assemblage
24”H x 72” W

“Caution”
Mixed Media Panel Assemblage
36”H x 72” W

“Blow Yourself Up 4”
Modfied Skate Deck
Circuit, Synthetic Dynamite, Severity
36”H x 16” W

“Blow Yourself Up 1”
Modfied Skate Deck
Pipe Bomb, Battery, Resistance
36”H x 17” W

“Blow Yourself Up 3”
Modified Skate Deck
(Pipe Bomb, Trigger, Madness)
36”H x 18” W

“Blow Yourself Up 2”
Modified Skate Deck
(Dynamite, Alarm, Trigger, Circuit, Danger and Invasion)
36”H x 16” W

“Blow Yourself Up 5”
Modified Skate Deck
(2-Way Radio, serigraph, intensity)
36”H x 14” W

“Ex Cop”
Mixed Media Assemblage and supplemental panels
107”H x 76” W

WK
“Ex Cop”
Acrylic, Enamel, and Ink on Natural Canvas
72”H x 72” W
(this last one is the canvas face, I have a feeling maybe that it’s not titled Ex Cop – might be a mistake)

I will take the blue “Ex Cop” (shown below) if you want to buy me one. That would be fine with me. Everything else you’ll have to match up yourself or go to the show. I am encouraging you to go to the show!

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

These photos are technically not animal parts inside-out, but animals with their insides… out. They’re all taken by one Nazif Topçuoğlu who is one splendid and spectacular photographer if I do say so myself. These photos fit perfectly into his artist statement, in which he searches for images that remind the viewer of an unclear past. In my mind, I’m hoping he’s a slaughterhouse attendant as a child.

Head cheese.

STATEMENT

On no days of our childhood did we live so fully perhaps as those we thought we had left behind without living them, those that we spent with a favourite book.

M. Proust, On Reading

The underlying thread in my work is a constant preoccupation with time, memory and loss. I worry about the transience of people and things in general, and try to reconstruct unclear and imperfect images of an idealized past. Such an attempt inevitably requires the ability to recapture past, hence my constant art-historical references to classic paintings and photographs as well as to authors such as Proust and Thomas Mann. Hence I have no problems with my images becoming visually seductive in the process.

Another and more specific aspect of the recent Readers, is its pre-occupation with the contradicting positions of women in Turkey. When employing the representations of youth as imagery, one has to deal with the issues of gender roles and male gaze. In these photographs, unlike the more common examples, a respectful stance towards the female has been taken. The subjectification of the female youth as a gender-free ideal, inevitably involves her intelligence, beauty, energy, and struggle as the major concerns of this work

I do photography because… I need to produce the images which are provocative but not exploitative that I would enjoy looking at.

There are two sets here: COLOUR OFFAL and BLACK AND WHITE OFFAL – I’m sure with your super eyeball brains and such, you’ll be able to tell the difference between the two. Color is color, and so on.

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

A most terrifying of categories.

Hope you’re not eating anything right about now.

Not paint on mushrooms, paint on mushroom. This photo is part of a brief project that goes by the name “Sea Creatures,” made by designer Paul Fuog during a post held at Stefan Sagmeister’s Experimental Outcamp. That’s a load of words. Paint on objects. Just a blob. Extremely clean. That’s what we’re dealing with here. Super splendid!

This small photographic series was developed during Paul’s posting at Stefan Sagmeister’s Experimental Outcamp in Ubud, Indonesia. The series explores the use of food in design.

Sagmeister’s Experimental Outcamp was one of the very few sabbaticals that ultra-designer Stefan Sagmeister will ever have taken. Before this one, Sag had only taken one, and after this one, there will only be two more (supposing he doesn’t design time travel or something like that.) The choices for who works with him on these sabbaticals are made logically, but those chosen might do well to still count their lucky stars.

Paul Fuog got in on all skill.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies Weird category, believe it or not.

Ow gross that’s some snot there, isn’t it? Vannen Artist Watches is basically a super fabulously new watch making group. They’re tiny and basically totally all about making watches. And this grotesque bit of arm filth, this arm watch for your arm, it’s the super special edition limited edition Halloween watch designed by painter, poster artist, fine artist, and gearhead “Dirty” Donny Gillies. Uh and what’s that, there’s a special edition?

And what’s that, it’s TOXIC?

It’s so very Toxic. Also way way below in the gallery you’ll be glad to view a tiny collection of other works by Dirty Donny. Its such dirty stuff. Posters.

Specs
Wrist: Medium Size – 7.75 Inches Max.
Movement: 3 Hand Japanese Quartz.
Dial: 28mm, Screen Printed, Multicolor.
Case: 34mm, Plastic, Glossy Black
Crystal: Plastic w/ Protective Film.
Buckle: Plastic, Glossy Black.
Loop: Plastic, Glossy Black.
Straps: 16mm Wide, Sandwhich Strap.

Oh my goodness look at all those statistics.

There’s 150 of these bad boys. Then, like all good limited editions, there’s 50 of the toxic flavoring. This is only the latest in a line of strange collaborations between Vannen Artist Watches and oddball lowbrow artists including Damon Soule, Chris Ryniak, Brian Morris, and the squishy one, Buff Monster. Slap one on. Slap THREE on.

Street artist Sam3‘s been up to some good, goodness sake. Look at these two newest works of his, both of them gigantic black figures rolling away the bad vibes of the billboards they live at. What a spectacular gesture. It doesn’t even have to be about advertising, it’s just that excellent. These were painted with simple black acrylic/oil/mixed paint, whatever was free at the time, painted with rollers on long sticks. See the other one below.

Above you can see the image called : “In The Autumn Leaves Fall.” Below you’ll find a collection of similar works by Sam3, followed by the other most recent work of his, “Getting Through The Back Door.” Both of these works were done in the past few days (14th of October and 19th of October, 2009.)

Check out the details also! Notice the fine ripping skills.

Nice rip, Sam3!

SAM3 is an artist that paints big (and we mean big) as well as small shadows and silhouettes in his urban surroundings. Sometimes ironic, other times poetic, always thought provoking, his work is more than a pretty picture.

Born in Elche, Spain, SAM3 currently lives and works in Madrid, Spain. His large street murals are certainly hard to miss to say the least and can be found across much of Europe.

Info above from print shop Paper Monster. They have a couple of his works (he does etchings and such) in their store – he’s exclusive if you know what I mean. This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies billboard category.

Hot dogs! Oh my goodness hotdogs! Coney Island Dogs. That’s what’s up. We’ve got a place around here (Minneapolis, Minnesota) called Uncle Frankey’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. They make amazing Coney Island Dogs. Supposedly they’re better on the REAL island, but who knows! These people do. And when I say these people, I mean all the people who took the photos included in the super insanely huge World Famous Design Junkies Coney Island Sign Explorer Collection. Oh wow the signs. Look at them all!

Ah yes, the island. All of these photos are straight off the island. Coney Island was the biggest park in the USA between 1880 and World War II, but now it’s sorta… fading… but that’s alright! It’s still insane! It’s a fast collection of fantastically clean painted signs and erratic, calculated oddities. And of course, the lights at night, or as we love to call signs of just this nature: Night Type.

BEHOLD, and be held… by the excellence.

Ironically, “Coney Island hot dog” describes a product that is unknown in its namesake, Coney Island, New York, where hot dogs (usually called “franks” from frankfurter) are traditionally made only from beef and served plain or with sauerkraut on a bun without other adornment except the availability of mustard, which at Nathan’s was applied by the customer. The only reason for the name is the generic hot dog’s origins in Coney Island, where it said to have been invented by Charles Feltman in 1867, who put a Vienna sausage in a roll and called it “Coney Island Red Hots.” Some people, unsure of its ingredients, called it a hot dog. Different references claim that the locals thought the sandwiches reminded them of Feltman’s ever-present companion, a dachshund, called a wiener dog even back then,and the term hot dog became a popular term. – WEEKII

The photos you see in this post are from the following contributors: I Follow, Brooklyn Bridge Baby, Maisa NYC, hut234, Mattron, Whiskey Gone Bad, Matt Daniels, Megga Llucci, Brunocerous, NB Photo Flash, Charles le Brigand, Andy Brannan, Nauga Style, PSLove1982, Me-Myself-I, Tucker Photography, Lost in Brooklyn, Coney Island History Project, Gordon Gattsek, and a couple others I cannot yet identify. Thanks to yew all!

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

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

ALSO ALSO SAVE CONEY ISLAND!

Oh my scary goodness! Misfits have been making records since before… well not quite as long as KISS, but still, pretty long! And here’s a new one. As nearly always, we’re in on the artwork part of it, and I’m gonna go right ahead and say this is pretty swanky. Full of zazz. The cover is painted / designed by a mister Arthyr Suydam of “Marvel Zombies” fame. Do you recognize the setup? BONUS: the release date is Halloween 2009.

Oh my goodness there’s no more room in Hell! This record has the first new “original” material from the Misfits band in 10+ years. The cover is done in direct homage to George Romero’s zombie legacy of movies, with a 100% genuine “Fiend Skull” on the neck of the underwater zombie.

If you’ve really gotta buy this thing then you’re gonna be in such a love with either version: red clear vinyl for the limited-edition LP, clear orange for the tour-only edition. All of these are on vinyl. Vinyl only. Or you can download them from … just steal them. Let’s me honest with eachother. Then buy the vinyl anyway.

This post slithered out of the World Famous Design Junkies grotesque category.

All the noodity of lovely bare-legged type. That’s what nakedtype.com was gonna be all about. Juan Carlos Pagan had an idea for a type foundry exploring the perceived humanistic qualities of letters. If you take a look now by clicking http://nakedtype.com/ you’ll see it’s parked by godaddy. We talkin future baybay! For now, while you wait, there’s several really pretty posters for you to peek at. Each of these in the set is 24″ x 32″ printed on medium-weight bright-white paper.

Oh fashionable! The sleek look of the just-picked letterforms from your favorite font. That’s what I’m talkin about. I can’t wait for this site! The Humanistic Qualities of Letters – that’s something you could make a single post about on a blog, but shoot if it isn’t a subject that could be expanded up into a full bigtime educational website. A must do.

This post is a page out of the World Famous Design Junkies book of typography. And then if you’re feeling extra saucy, salt and peppery, you can head over to the official World Famous Design Junkies House of Burlesque.

addl!

Thanks everyone for all the love. But i cannot take total credit for all these posters. The lovely “K” poster was created by the extraordinary talent of Gaius Benbow. Check out his link here http://www.gaiusbenbow.com/.

-Juan Carlos Pagan

Thanks man!

A sculpture for the wild books. This bodacious creation was birthed from the brain of sculptor Chen Wenling. His works include nothing less than weird, wild, and wicked! This particular sculpture is called “What You See Might Not Be Real” and is part of a new exhibition at Joy Art Gallery called “Emergency Escape.” Generally his exhibitions include a bunch of characters that sit inside a single theme (like pigs, or monotone Red people), so this is a fabulous departure of style and a crashing crank to subject matter. Discover for yourself the hugeness of this farting bull, and discover the celebrity devil he’s destroying.

The big fart! “放屁“ (fang pi) in Chinese literally means to fart but in slang it means to bluff or lie.

Chen Wenling’s previous exhibition was called “God of Materialism” at the Asia Art Center – logical transition to the subject matter here, yes? The bull is the economy, the man being smashed? Bernie Madoff. What a lovely composition!

Made of fiberglass, various paints, 20+ feet tall.

Emergency Exit
Joy Art Gallery
Beijing, China
Chen Wenling Solo Exhibition
Curator: Huang Du
Displayed through October 11 2009

This post from the World Famous Design Junkies sculpture category.

Every fantastic photo I ever heard of had at least two good elements in it. If it had three, well hell, I’d be all over it. All up around it holdin it in my hands, ready with a frame and a matte, ready to put that thang up on my wall. But look at me ramblin! What are we talkin about here for real? That man and his puppy. That man, the other men in this post and one lady. All of em found on a road trip from Las Vegas to the Salton Sea.

All of them photographed by none other than Mark Mediana, who works for that link, design group Vessel. This post is straight outta the World Famous Design Junkies dirty category because every dog I ever knew licked his own butt. Society for Teamsters Against Dirty Doggy Kisses!

Hey. Let me tell ya. I’m sure you remember the Erik Inkala Rock and Roll Party announcement from a few days ago on here, right? Well the opening night was last night, and here we’ve got a buch, no, a craplost of pictures from the event. So many photos. Artists up the wazoo and back again. Peek at it.

These photos were taken at basically the beginning of the show, so it was mostly what I assume was parts of Inkala’s family. Let’s just say the people at the show didn’t seem like the normal hipsters, punks, and bikeriders that I’d expect at a graffiti show. But it was fun to see that, as I’m a fan of the proliferation of “underground” cultures, especially when they are literally in a room that’s under the ground, in the basement.

Saturday September 19th at First Amendment Arts
1101 Stinson Blvd (corner of Broadway and Stinson in NE Minneapolis), 55413
7-10pm
all ages
free admission

Show runs September 19 – October 20, 2009
First Amendment’s regular gallery hours: Weekdays, 12-5pm

First Amendment Gallery will host the send-off party for Minneapolis-based / Brooklyn-bound artist Eric Inkala, who was previously featured in shows, Almost Famous and Almost Homeless. The exhibition will feature new paintings by Inkala along with the work of 47 local artists that have inspired him during his time in Minneapolis. Join the party, see a lot of great art, and take the chance to wish Eric luck before he makes his move to New York.

This post is straight out of the World Famous Design Junkies burlesque category. If you’d like instead to take a look through all the posts we’ve got on Burlesque Design, feel free to do dat too. Also I bet this constitutes another one of our super-famous, maybe even WORLD famous Mini Tours. Be there for those and that.

Uh oh, udders. Award winning art director Tommaso Lesnick has lost his mind. He’s created a vast set of animal silhouettes with one udder in common. What kind of terrifyingly awkward world we’d live in is Lesnick was in charge. Someone get that guy a drink!

His work explores the repetition of forms, ideas, and actions, often reaching across disciplinary boundaries and using the found, rather than the invented. Most recently he’s been interested in a simultaneous avoidance of and desire for repetition in daily life. He can be contacted at tommaso@tommasolesnick.com .

Not to be used in any way by anyone but Tommaso Lesnick. Like don’t be printing these off as stickers and sticking them to poles where everyone can enjoy them. Don’t be doing that! This post is for the World Famous Design Junkies Custom Culture category.

Artist / Designer Frank Gonzales is a process-oriented craftsman. He’s got his ins and outs on. As he paints, he decides what to do. As a designer, he leaves the windows open. If you’re in a rut, maybe it’s because you’re driving a car. Frank Gonzales drives an interdimentional spacecraft. Take a peek at his lovely bird set here, then see if you’re got a handle on space-time.

In his own words: I like to construct and deconstruct during the process leaving traces of my journey in the end results. Like life itself, there are elements of uncertainty, dialogue and changes that take place which can be both fascinating and frustrating to me.

Now incase you didn’t know, or didn’t notice the picture down there that’s just a pile of buckets of paint, you should be aware that these are all brand spanking new acrylic paintings. There’s nothing digital at work here, just paintings photographed by an camera. Just utter graphical loveliness.

This post is from the World Famous Design Junkies painting category. Straight up.

What up bluefaces! Here’s a couple new images from the Burlesque Design and Printmaking group. Yes oh yes the content’s the finest: Smurfs getting generally pretty much inappropriate, and Gargamel doing a neat kickflip trick on his skateboard machine! It’s amazing how much free stuff – in terms of humour – you can get from classic cartoons that tended to have odd, unsettling subtexts. These particular images are made for Minneapolis’s single skateboard-only shop Familia. Get on the board and push with two hot spankin new screenprint posters!

FAMILIA SMURFS PRINTS
Our friends over at Familia Skateshop (Minnesota’s only all-skateboard shop) know how to get down. They’ve enlisted the help of the one and only Todd Bratrud to get themselves Smurfed into the party zone. We have TWO new posters for you – one featuring a rowdy famiilia of Smurfs and another featuring badman Gargamel pon di kickflip.

SMURF PRINT
19 x 19″
8 color print on Cougar White paper

GARGAMEL PRINT
12 x 25″
5 color print on French Speckletone Cream or Relic Gold paper

I bet you’ve never seen Gargamel rip the sky a new one like that. He’s kind of been shy about his skills before now, but he got convinced to come out of the coping closet once he saw his blue-footed adversaries having a totally fun night partying hard. I’m hoping for a special edition Azrael “Smurfy Breakfast” print. Until then!

This post is in the World Famous Design Junkies bad taste category for debauchery.

[audio:http://worldfamousdesignjunkies.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/gargamel.mp3]

Also two minutes for high sticking.

Nice typographics! Nice typographies that’s what this has. It’s got nice style and nice pinkness. I didn’t go inside, if that’s what you’re up on, but I did find something lovely behind the building. Explore with me, if you will, the wonders of the exterior of the building that goes by the title “Jake’s Exotic Dancers.” And if you’re lucky, you might just get more than you bargained for (a pdf file!)

The dancers are “Totally Exotic!”

Exciting development! Since I started posting this post, I’ve discovered a wonderful PDF file that relates directly to Jake’s. Turns out that some time in 2002, the city of Coates, Minnesota (where Jake’s is located) tried to outlaw erotic dancing in their city limits (or something to that effect.) This PDF that I just came across is a several page, nicely typed appeal to the higher Minnesota courts asking that Jake’s first amendment rights be upheld so that the ladies could shake their booties forevermore.

That PDF is so importante!

Thing is, I don’t know what happened to that case, so I don’t know if you can even go in Jake’s anymore at all! The signs are sort of decrepit (as you can probably see), but there was a pretty fresh car parked behind the building. So who knows!

Take a peeker at the pictures here on in and look at that lovely couch! It’s probably still there if you want it.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies architecture category, just for fun!

Perhaps you’re familiar with the Mid-Minnesota dirt-mall fashion circuit? Oh no? Oh no! Well let me introduce you! This here is a the Wright County Swap Meet: center of attention for those who wish to see and be seen by the midwest flea market fashion elite. Several events are happening right now that affect the landscape, including the summer of ’09 tie-dye revival and the Minnesota Vikings signing of ultimate rival team Green Bay’s former all-star quarterback Bret Farve. Faux Pas ensues.

Labor Day weekend deluxe!

Engage in this brand new collection of hip-shots and look around the photo to find the subject matter. It’s not always in the middle, but it’s always there. Take a peek and see if you can find the lady who drives her little puppy around in a stroller, and don’t forget to find the gigantic Pikachu accessory.

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

I’m noticing a trend. Take a peek at this lovely no-spitting banner from the newest files of Basil E Frankwieler better known as Erik Brandt. The rules are clear!

This post from the mixed up category of World Famous Design Junkies typography