Hello all you fellows and ladies who love artworks in huge exhibitions. Here’s an yell about an art show that’s got some fantabulous names in it that don’t often hold shows, then a ton who’ve never shown works together before. Subliminal is an art gallery in Los Angeles run by some of the same people or otherwise close associates of the people who bring you Obey Giant and Studio Number One. That means they know what they’re talking about as far as effective art and design. This show is going to be a blast upon their walls with wonder, and if you’re in the area, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t head on over and take a big giant peek. There’ll be Martha Cooper works there (pictured above,) that should be more than reason enough by itself!

Image: Martha Cooper, Happy Holidays by Jason & Richie (Seen), 1982, South Bronx
Digital C-Print, 8 x 12 inches
Signed Edition of 100

Wreck the Walls
A Winter Group Exhibition Featuring Over 30 Artists

Opening Reception:
Saturday, December 11th, 2010 / 5-9PM

Exhibition Dates:
December 11th – January 15th, 2011

Valet Parking Provided!

Subliminal Projects Gallery is pleased to present Wreck the Walls, a group exhibition on view December 11, through January 15, 2011. A reception for the artists will be held Saturday, December 11, from 5-9 p.m.

Wreck the Walls includes works by over 30 artists, established and emerging, who have helped shape the artistic spirit influenced by their times. Rebellious pioneers of their artistic genres, who come from a background where there are few rules and anything is possible, have helped pave the way for a younger generation of artists who are influenced by their prevailing subculture. From gallery to street art, this show expresses each artist’s divergence and individuality, offering a visual cornucopia of painting, photography, mixed media, works on paper, digital prints, sculpture, graphic design, and illustration.

This show seeks to allow the viewer a window into the myriad worlds of a group of artists whose careers span over two cultural generations, and whose individual visions create a disjointed mosaic. Their works recall the vastly differing self-perceptions cultivated in a patchwork art world constantly seeking to define and redefine itself. Wreck the Walls embraces the multiple identities of the artistic practice, and rather than seeking to congeal the complex layers of artistic vision that make up the culture, the show celebrates distinct perceptions by juxtaposing artists, whether established or emerging, who reject uniformity in a culture that defies singular classification.

Participating Artists Include:

Alan Shaffer, Alejandro Gehry, Andy Moses, Bertil Petersson, Billy Al Bengston, Blek Le Rat, Craig Stecyk, Curtis Kulig, David Ellis, David Yow, Ed Moses, Ellwood T. Risk, Erik Foss, Eric Schwartz, Eric White, Evan Hecox, Greg Lamarche, Jason Alper, John Van Hamersveld, Laddie John Dill, Larry Bell, Martha Cooper, Monica Canilao, Retna, Robbie Conal, Ryan McGinness, Ryan Travis Christian, Skullphone, Swoon, Tim Biskup, Vanessa Prager

SUBLIMINAL PROJECTS GALLERY
1331 W Sunset Blvd
Los Angeles, CA 90026
E: info@subliminalprojects.com
P. 213.213.0078
F. 213.213.0077

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.

The following project is done by Nerea De Diego and is a wallpaper applied illegally type situation. In a rarely-to-never sort of move to turn the streets into a clean, ordered place by applying unanimity to an otherwise ever so slightly more diverse environment, Diego turns graffiti around once again. Graffiti’s been turned around, upside down, inside out, and broken so many times, it’s surprising there’s not more college courses devoted to the study of it. Or nah. That’d be fruitless.

These works can still be seen in the streets from whens they’ve been photographed, more than likely Madrid or somewhere in Mexico, but mostly in tatters. As many modern graffiti artists will tell you – this way looks amazing as well. This wallpaper project goes by the name “3,000 Posters Plastered on The Street” or “Intervention,” whichever you’d like best. These works remind me very much of the works of ESPO who occasionally does letters so large that to the untrained eye they appear to be blocks of paint that’ve cleaned an otherwise dirty or noisy wall. Magical!

So look, this is all a good idea. Don’t go do illegal things, but do do what your heart tells you to do, even if that means doing the laundry, cleaning out the trash can behind your house, or brushing your teeth.

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

The following is a small collection of photographs from the 2008 Sichuan earthquake in China. Photographer Greg Amgwerd took these gorgeous photos of a terrible event on a Leica M6 camera. A point of interest: although these photos were taken on a film camera, they now only exist in digital form because of damage done to the negatives while they were being processed in Asia.

Once a building crashes down, it becomes a texture. Once your life is crushed down in an earthquake, you can choose to despair, or allow the new life rush in. Find the photo below with the smiling friends. That’s hopefulness.

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

Hooray! Our old pal Jenny Lane has another music video! If you’ll remember, we did a feature on her colorblaster “Say Say Say” and then another on the robot loving “You Start a Fire”. Today there’s another masterpiece of loveable modern technology, this time in 2D animation form. This is the video for “Whoopsy Daisy,” a big fluffy pillow full of fabulous sweet-jam music and sugar-coated candy animation. And it’s all a dream.

The story goes that Jenny’s fast asleep, dreaming of her relationship situation in some sort of heaven environment, boots-a-walkin and being shadowed by a gigantic blue furry monster. In a marshmallow party I’ve not seen since Bjork’s “I Miss You” (1996, directed by the always epic John K.) Take a peek and devour it fully, and let your heart be filled with love when Lane realizes the true fur of love near the end. So cute!

Look at this huge crew!

Concept: NMtrix, Shop Around
3D modelling, Mocap & Animation: NMtrix
Directed by NMtrix & Shop Around
Character- & background design: Niels kalk
Storyboard: Shop Around (Bert Dijkstra & Niels kalk)
Live-Action: Shop Around (Bert Dijkstra/ Zoltan Korai)

Producer: Patrick Nijman
Animation Director: Michael Visser
Technical Director: Johan Boekhoven

Animators:
Gurkan Ylmaz
Muharrem Bayrak
Eric Reniers

Modelling:
Egbert Stuger
Robert Everhardt
Arthur Kwadijk

Video-edit:
Arjen Mancini

Mocap:
Noortje Noordstrand
Nathan Ornick
Jolande Junte
Jasper Brekelmans
Marco Mepschen

Choreography: Willempje Vrins
Dancers:
Jenny Lane
Walid
Bora Serin

Whoopsy Daisy song:
Written by Jenny Lane / Alvin Lewis
Produced by Joeri Saal
Co-produced by Jenny Lane
Recorded at Studio 150
Additional keys recorded at EP Service
Mixed by Skiggy @ The Pelican Studio’s
Mastered by Darius van Helfteren @ Amsterdam

Jenny Lane: Vocals & Backing Vocals / additional Keys
Alvin Lewis: Keys
Boele Weemhoff: additional Keys
Frans Molenaar: Guitar
Tim Barning: Bass & additional Freaky Stuff
Ben Bakker: Drums
Patrick Mijnals: additional keys
Len van de Laak: Additional freaky stuff

To see more Jenny Lane, take a peek over at her iTunes page for track purchasing, her Facebook page for chattering, and her Twitter page for twittering!

And BONUS below the gallery there’s a making-of! You get to hear Jenny speaking her native language (not silly sally English, since she’s Dutch), you’d never guess it hearing her sing though, ay? There’s lots of fun 3D tracking stuff going on and fancy technology!

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

The fantastical moment in great combinations, that moment you happen upon the perfect situation, that’s where we are right now when we take a peek at this project. This all belongs to and were photographed by photographer Jasper James, who’s collected these photos into a larger collection of photos called “People and Places 2,” aka these haven’t been cordially separated into the project they deserve to be separated into. Therefor I’m calling them “In Shadows” because they all have that certain something in common.

Look out the window on a very sunny day and you’ll see the shadow through which you can see everything you’d love to see. James caught this several times and always in a fantastically framed and colored photo.

To take a look at the rest of James’ photos, head on over to http://jasperjames.co.uk/ and click everything and give him lots of money.

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

Let me tell you what you’re seeing here. This is the work of one Roya Hamburger, an artist / designer whose name is just amazing and perfect. Roya Hamburger. What an amazing name, and with the skills to back it up. The skills are digital illustration skills. The images you see above and below are a set of 3 that go by the name “The Elbow Room” 1 2 and 3. They’re indicative of the amazing fantastic wonderful work Roya Hamburger does on the daily. All done in Adobe-product applications.

We live in an age where a lot of illustration sucks. It shouldn’t even be called illustration is sucks so much. But this work by Roya Hamburger is amazing. She’s got amazing work and she’s got a lot of it. These pictures you see in this post are my favorite, and they’re not even the most elaborate. She’s doin it. And she’s doin it in a way I’ve never quite seen before. Digital illustration runs down lines that often times look very very similar. Roya Hamburger is not down those lines. She’s wild.

For more work by Roya Hamburger, take a look at http://www.royahamburger.net/

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

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

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

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.

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

No matter how conscious I am of the water I use, I still use too much. Just recently I payed the first bill I’ve ever had where the water portion was shown separately. It was cheap! Basically free! So I’m even less conscious now than I was before. I’m practically passed out! But look at this heavy statement right here, above and below. It’s called “Poor Little Fish” and it shows, in a very real way, how you could be killing all life on this planet by using too much water, especially all the little orange fishies.

This Poor Little Fish bowl is the work of designer / artist Yan Lu. He’s got your guilt in mind, and he wants it! He wants to smash you right in the guilt muscle if you think about using too much water. How? By threatening to kill this fish. As you use water, the water level in the fish tank goes down. That easy. That scary.

Then as he notes, the water you use isn’t the same water as is in the tank. Both are safe and clean for fish and human. You wont be washing your hands with goldfish poops.

Words from Yan Lu:

As consumption is incalculable, saving is often neglected through daily consumption. Rather than forcing people to consume less, thus depressing the using experience, Poor Little Fish basin offers an emotional way to persuade consumers to think about saving water, by making consumption tangible.

//

There is a traditional shaped fish bowl in the Poor Little Fish basin. While using, the level of water in the bowl gradually falls (but does not actually drain out); it will go back to the same level once the water stops running. As well, the water from the tap is pure, as its pipeline does not connect to the bowl.

Elegant and weird, just how mama likes it.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies 3D 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.

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.

The perfect and most appropriately absurd contraption for getting around your city whilst remaining in “natural” mode is this – the “Parkwheel.” This wheel of grass and walkability is designed and executed by David Gallaugher and a couple helpers from his school Dalhousie architecture. It’s a grass wheel. Walk around in it with no shoes or socks on.

Make sure you only enter buildings with tall doors. Feel that fantastic feeling on your tootsies and wiggle them around a little bit.

NOTE: I’m having a bit of trouble reaching Gallaugher and was given this content from a third-party source. If you know D.G., or know where he hides his online portfolio, lemme know, so we can spread more love over world toast!

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

This bike right here sat, the day I saw it, in the parking garage next to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Childrens Museum, and MCAD. It sat down on the bottom level, lookin all good, all covered in stickers from face to rear. What you’re about to see is a sneak-snap documentation of this parked bike including each and I hope every sticker on it.

It’s got things you might recognize too, including a lovely Burlesque Design sticker right under it’s toothy grin.

If you’re out there looking at this and you’ve got more details than I or we do, and you’d like to share, please do. Comment below or email any details about the bike or any of the stickers if you know and want to share in goodheartedness.

Then, if you’ve got a bike or other sort of automotive covered in stickers like this and you just so happen to have documentation of it, or if you know of someone else who has, send it in! I and we and everyone love reduplications of culture from around the planet.

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

With each new age, especially ones that come with technological or social changes, aka all of them, there comes some artwork that defines the age. Not so much defines the age as epitomizes the craft. Here it is. The computer age spewed pixels, and in its horrible terror of colors in perfect squares made a thing that was unique. Still is. Here’s a set of illustrations as made by Alex Peverett, all out of pixels in such strange arrangements. All of them have fabulous titles too, like “CtadLSCrambl (2010)” (pictured above.)

In here you’ll see some things that, statistically, you’ll probably think look super horrible and ugly. But let me tell you! It isn’t. Stop yourself from seeing what’s there and see what it all means. What does it all mean? It’s swooshes of waves, even though it looks to be squared off.

To see new works, supposing this post is old as dirt, take a peek over at http://main.softoceanhotel.net/, or if you’re super excited and need to communicate more directly with Peverett, email right up to alex(((AT)))softoceanhotel.net. And good luck! He might be a total wild animal!

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

Let me introduce you to the magical, mystical world of the Gopher Bargain Center. This is a place located on the South Side of my birth city, Saint Cloud Minnesota, USA. Gopher is a store where you can buy old food, lightly used or second furniture, bolts and screws, and yes, swords! Everything your heart might somehow in a strange alternate universe desire, that’s all here. The photos you see below and above were taken by yours truly, on location, live and in person. And, if you’ll peek below the sign you’ll see- in the snow.

Now it might be important for some to note that these photos were taken in the year 2008. The post you’re reading right now was written in 2010, in the month of July, while the photos were taken 2 years ago in April. Two points make this irrelevant though – first, these images have never been posted publicly before, and second, the Gopher Bargain Center is slow to change. Certainly if you were to take a journey through the Gopher Bargain center today, it would look very similar to the images you are about to devour.

If you’d like to visit the Gopher Bargain Center, just go to Saint Cloud Minnesota and ask anyone, basically anybody around the whole city, “where is Gopher from here?” and they’ll know. They’ll show ya. While you’re there, you might as well head on over to Val’s, too. You’ll never find another one of those, either.

Have fun!

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

Illustrator Naresh Ch Das, straight outta Hyderabad (India), presents his fantastic skills with the swiftness. Each of the works you see here took Das a very very small amount of time to do, in MOST cases somewhere around 20 minutes. Holy crap you’re saying, and will continue to say throughout this post. The gallery is full of magnificence, a bounty of natural, human habitat, and science fiction horizontals are spread over digital canvases in a world I’m sure heaven isn’t too far apart from.

SPEED PAINTING is what this is. Let me repeat, these paintings were all done in under an hour, in most cases under a half hour. Frajabulous!

Das tells us his work is the painting and coloring of dreams. He paints what he feels and what he enjoys, hoping to touch hearts of the viewer through the sensual nature of the brushstrokes. Heavy stuff! Really noble stuff too, in a very unique way, reaching out to the world through digitally based landscape illustrations.

There’s some heavy robots in there too, sometimes with flamethrowers, and they sneak up on you, so watch out for that. If you’d like to get in contact with Naresh Ch Das, email him at dasnaresh @ gmail.com, or visit him at his blogspot blog type http://lostinarc.blogspot.com/ online portfolio – updates on the often!

UPDATE – more info sent in from Das:

I use all the mediums – oil, acrylics, charcoal, watercolor, and also digital..but most of the work on my blog [including these Speed Paintings] are created in digital…

I am currently working for a game development studio as lead concept art/visual development artist… my strong points lie in the pre-production part, i.e. concept art, character design and development, story boarding, matte painting, 2d traditional animation, layout and background painting (both manual and digitally.)

Keep on rockin!

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

Ever have a day when you felt quite spacey? I’ll show you a guy right here who felt that way for a while. This is illustrator and colorist Angus McKie. He’s done a bunch of covers for paperback science fiction novels including some fabulous works in Stewart Cowley’s “Terran Trade Authority” illustrated books. Along with a group of other lovingly talented draw artists of his generation, he developed a whole spaceships in heavily detailed backgrounds. Then, most importantly of all I think, he illustrated the entire “So Beautiful, So Dangerous” segment of the 1981 animated epic Heavy Metal.

Take a peekie peek at a slightly edited (for boobage, if I’m not mistaken) version of “So Beautiful, So Dangerous” from Heavy Metal, then head on down to the gallery below for a bunch of pics made by the man we be speakin of right now, Angus McKie. And give him a high five for excellence.

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

If you’ll remember a few weeks ago, we posted some pics of a painting in process by a certain mister painter Isaac Arvold. At the time of the painting of the painting, Arvold was unsure of the final fate of the painting. Well look at this! This is one of the several new bike parking places for the city’s new biking initiative. On the endcap here we see the same painting we’re talking about sitting behind a biker on one of these green bikes!

Additionally interesting is the street that this is on – Hennepin – only a couple blocks away from the bridge that the painting depicts. How super!

For more info on the original work, head on over to [Isaac Arvold Big Fat Painting]

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

First Avenue is being repainted, just incase you didn’t know, all of it. First it was blackened out completely, then re-starred in a regular grid (the stars were wacky before), then the title added. All’s we’ve got pics of here is the title over a few days time, but peek if you can at those stars too. Inside each of them is the name of a superstar musical artist or group that at least once performed in the main room on the First Avenue main stage. It’s all very slick now, very sassy, very clean.

Also there’s a new restaurant in there and I think they’re building a spaceship in the garage and Michael Jackson is going to do a reunion concert on top!

EDIT 7/16/2010: star painting pics added via First Ave on facebook.

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