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

The creator of the branding for the ever-so-epic Hispanic Branding UNO is coming to the alma-mater of yours truly. Very exciting. And he’s not just gonna be hanging out, no way! He’s coming to offer up his wisdom and knowledge for the very fair price of completely free. Just hang a left on over to the Minneapolis College of Art and Design auditorium 150 on November 1st at 6:30PM to give a listen.

His name is Luis Fitch, and he’s totally Minneapolis based.

Above and below you’re gonna love seeing the poster design students Mitch Green and Michael Aberman have printed for this event. Just like any great and grand screenprint design artist, they took their time and made a bunch of different iterations, all on the tongue of the beast. The poster is designed by Fitch, but they’re all about the licker.

Love it love it love it.

All this news comes from our relative site over at Geotypografika.

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.

Behold, a tiny collection of guitars turned into masterpieces of weirdness by a collection of artists of such odd disparity. One guitar basically has nothing to do with the next other than the base and in a couple cases, the region from whens the artist cometh. The photos we’ve got below were taken at the place where this show resides: Grumpy’s Downtown Minneapolis. This show was originally conceived as part of the Amphetamine Reptile Records 25th anniversary bash, and runs until September 30th, 2010. Go look! Have some tater tots and really tasty chicken strips and a brew!

La-La Land Gallery (owned and operated by artist/Minnesota native Kii Arens) and Ox-Op (that gallery that hasn’t been open for EVER behind Grumpy’s downtown Minneapolis) present customized Waterstone Guitars by this fantastic list of master artists and designers: Aesthetic Apparatus, Arbito, Brynn Arens, Kii Arens, Anthony Ausgang, Gary Baseman, Keith Brogdon, Andrew Brandou, CLUTTER Magazine, DALEK, Steve Ellis, Ed Fotheringham Ray Frenden, HAZE-XXL, Myles Karr, KOZIK, Jessie LeDoux, Little, Friends of Printmaking, Rob McBroom, Michael Motorcycle, Niagara, Juliette Oken, Martin Ontiveros, Plasticgod, Chris Reccardi, Chris Ryniak, Snaggs, Savanna Snow, Gary Taxali and Amanda Visell. Most of these guitars are for sale here: [OX-OP]

Grumpy’s Downtown
1111 Washington Avenue South
Minneapolis MN 55415

Below you’ll notice two sets of photos. The detail pics of the guitars in perfect light are done by OX-OP, the rest, photographed in the bar, are by WFDJ. Use liberally.

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

So you’ve been assigned a program, invite, and menu to do for the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, have you? You’ve got quite a nice little task there then, yes? What do you do? Do you go wild? No, no. Do get bent out on some amazing block letters? No, I don’t think so. How about you choose a strong yet sassy little font and print gold leaf on a nice earthy green? Yes, yes I think so. Designer Paula Lukey chose to do just that, very well.

Above and below you’ll get a nearly close look at the ephemera Lukey made for a date at the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra – an elegant effort that shows her mastery at the art of layout and subtlety. And that green! Oh gosh! Oh wow!

Visit http://www.paulalukey.com/ for more perfectly generous simplicity.

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

What a perfect day, a wondrous day, for today a baby is born. My friends Erik Brandt and Elisabeth Workman have tied their lives together and shot out a whole ‘nother life into existence. This child you see before you has three glorious names, one more excellent than the last, all in a circle: Beatrix Lulu Sakile!!! She was born at 6:45AM this morning (CST) and is already dancing on the dance floor with the whole world. As per request by the parents, I issue you the demand that you get down and boogie in celebration too!

Musical selections below!

It’s a funky day, get out on the dance floor for Beatrix!

Dance all day!

The title of this post comes from Erik Brandt’s original announcement to the wider world through the internet, a passage which also included “Liebe Freunde! Beatrix Lulu Sakile was born at 6:45AM this morning (CST) … Mother and child are so beautiful and strong, it is just amazingly amazing and amazingly amazing.

So, all peace loving people must now GET ON THE FLOOR AND DANCE WITH US…”

Hooray forever!

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

Today (I wrote this a few days ago) I hear the sad news that one of the ultimate original players in the Graffiti and Hip-hop world has kicked the bucket. “RAMM::ELL::ZEE” or Rammellzee as he was called died today [June 27, 2010] whilst, if the rumors are true, he was doing math equations in none other than his home town and city, Far Rockaway, Queens, New York. How unbelievably appropriate for one of the most mathematically sound wild-style artists of many generations. The first I ever heard of him, he was being described in the Graffiti documentary film “Style Wars,” his paintings of weapon-clad letters being shown by his pal Dondi, another king.

In humble celebration of the passing of Ram, I and we present to you a gallery of armored letters, operators that blow the lids off all that they encounter. Rest in peace, Zee.

“The letter is armed to stop all the phony formations, lies, and tricknowlegies placed upon its structure.” – RAM EL ZEE

Rammel is an enigma. An eternally complicated graffiti man who, according to wikipedia, revealed in an interview that his name meant heavy, heavy stuff – derived from “RAM” plus “‘M’ for ‘Magnitude’, ‘Sigma’ (Σ) the first summation operator, first ‘L’ – ‘longitude’, second ‘L’ – ‘latitude’, ‘Z’ – ‘z-bar’, Σ, Σ – ‘summation’.”

Dondi speaking about a work with Ram in a Style Wars “scene extra”:

And that’s just the tip of this metal, mental iceberg. Look for some videos of this crazy brilliant man if you dare. He’s wild. Above begins and below continues the gallery including a couple of works by Ram himself (above being a “B” by Ram owned by a private party), plus a bunch of paintings by adventurers that were inspired without a doubt by Ram’s life in one way or another. Have a feast on these giant masterpieces in his honor.

Where appropriate, the filenames of the letters in the gallery below will lead you to their sources. Due to the super-futuristic nature of Ramm Ell Zee, I expect you to know how to access that information. Internets, graffiti, letters with weapons. Activate!

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

Well, the day has finally come. June 29, 2010. This marks ten full years since the release of one of the most addictive keyboard-and-click video games ever created. It was there, in that game, online with thousands of other players fighting, leveling up, collecting treasures, that I realized my obsessive personality. I believe every modern person has this sort of “disorder” to some degree, they call it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder if I’m not mistaken, OCD for short. Diablo II (aka Diablo 2) took hold of that piece of each of us, the people finding themselves part of this new internet community, and held on tight.

Ten years tight.

And then there was the Social Media. And the clicking.

Now you might notice the “DIGG” logo mark stuck to the Diablo II image above. Why? Because it’s the same. Over the past few days I’ve attached myself to the community of DIGG like it was a game. Because it is a game. When you’ve got a brain like me and the rest of us young gentlemen and ladies who can’t keep their hands still, all you’ve got to do is provide a ranking system and you’ve got them occupied.

If you want to survive in today’s capitalizing network, you’ve got to keep your head. You consider your obsessive nature a disorder and you’re stuck feeling bad about it. You tell yourself you’re strong and that being obsessed allows you to do mass amounts of work, well, you’ll burn out, buddy. So what’s to be done? How many roads must a man walk down? Do girls just want to have fun?

Let’s talk about what we do on WFDJ to stay occupied in a healthy manner, or at least a progressively social manner. Sound good? How about we number this list, too.

1. DIGG – On this share and read site, I’ve found it beneficial to be yourself: ca77 is the name I go by. We had a WFDJ DIGG and it petered out. It had a little bit to do with that I lost interested back when I started it, and a lot to do with the fact that people on DIGG like to feel like they’re working with people as opposed to organizations. Now we’re making friends, connections, and cross-links. Up-voting per friendly suggestions, rooting out false prophets aka spammers, and submitting our own material here and there to capitalize on the work it does take to be a helpful member in this squad of workers.

2. FACEBOOK – Here we’re in a few places. There’s my personal page, something everybody’d probably enjoy having if they had one, then there’s both the WFDJ website page and personality. These both have their own unique abilities, both of them important to how we round out our facebook presence. The website page is the place where people basically thumb-up our page and suggest it to others. Real simple. The personality page is the same thing you get when you sign yourself up for facebook. If you’ll take a look you’ll see the name on it is “WorldFamous DesignJunkies” because we’ve got to fool fb into believing the presence is a person. People see this, find it unique, and friend it right away. 946 friends end up being much more valuable than 2,000 thumbs-ups. For real.

3. TUMBLR – A super-simple and lovely genius setup for bloggers from the start to the super-used-to. The WFDJ tumblr account acts as a subsidary of WFDJ’s main news page, allowing for more attention to be payed to individual images and quotes from pages. People today on these internets are interested not only in the content they’re peeking at, but in the way they’re peeking at it too. Tumblr is unique in it’s…well… twitter-list sort of friends feed, showing updates from everyone they love at once, with simple buttons for liking and re-posting. That, and if you’ve got the personality we’re talking about, tumblr’s a place where you can post thoughts and sub-images that come to your knowledgeable mind throughout the day not big enough for a whole post.

4. TWITTER – Have one. Love it. Don’t hold back. Unless you’re the kind of person who posts every 5 minutes, because that’s a cause to hold back. People de-friend people who post too much. I’d wager to say that posting too frequently is the number one reason people de-friend on Twitter. An awesome service to use to post to twitter is http://su.pr/, a site made by StumbleUpon for people to have instant url-shortening complete with a handy SU head-board. Always with the head-boards. Always with the grasp of the fingers.

5. STUMBLEUPON – This community is perhaps the most difficult to be a part of because of it’s dis-jointed nature. There are message boards and there are ways to send messages back and forth, but there’s so much sharing that it’s basically impossible to work with other people. Your best bet for becoming successful at SU is to follow the rules you’d work with for Reddit or Digg. Be sensible, work on helping other people first, yourself in the back of your mind most of the time, in front every once in a while. We’ve been at it so long that our method is to post different singular images from WFDJ, using SU as an image-sharing program rather than as a news aggregator.

6. REDDIT – Find your favorite sub-Reddit and thrive in it. I’ve had some little success working with the people who run the Star Wars list. Each subreddit has its own moderators and family, so it’s possible to be cool with these healthy “medium groups.”

With all of these plus finding the content plus preparing and publishing the content, one has the opportunity to have this OCD nature without messing a single one up by too much participation. Always keep in mind that everyone on these internets is a person, and that many people go to multiples of these sites. That means if you post the same thing to each of them, these people will find you and they will slap you in the face, digitally. So be new and unique with each little thing you post. In fact, just to be safe, never post the same thing twice. Not only is that healthy, it keeps you spry.

Stay spry!

And if you want to eat your life alive, play D2… or depending on when you read this post, play D3. And good luck, you’ll be alone there. It’s going to be TOO good.

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

Photographer James Dodd presents this “LRP” titled group of images. In these photos you will find a brief glimpse of the world that is Live Role Playing. The people who participate in LRP games are called “Larpers” and make it an epic event to travel to a single meeting place dressed in full garb, using weapons of steel or plastic, cardboard or paper mache. Given a set of rules, point values, and boundaries, they play games in an alternate universe. An alternate universe where people have fur and green skin. LRP for life.

To get an excellent view of what real life LRP play is like, see the non-real-life movie “Role Models.” In it, they dress in medieval garb and do battle on the playing field, the winner of any contest becoming king. Ultra battle in a different dimension!

Here’s a tiny scene from Role Models in which the battle RAGES:

Although these images are all relatively tame, they are extremely well shot, framed; all that good stuff. I wont go into any more details of the LRP world here now, in favor instead of you going out there in the world to find an event yourself.

Bring a camera, some Mountain Dew, and a heart full of love for the imagination.

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

This is the first time World Famous Design Junkies has covered anything made by Little Thunder 門小雷, so there will be some extra details so you know who she is below. In a nutshell, she is a comic-style illustration artist and designer who also does Chinese medicine and acupuncture. Do you know what that means? It means she’s open to doing all sorts of radical things! In today’s post we see Little Thunder 門小雷 at the Hong Kong 2010 International Licensing Show, showing some lovely 3D items including models of her work and some SUPER CUTE pillow creatures!

You may explore the images from the show at the bottom of this post in the gallery, or first do this little bit of reading on Little Thunder 門小雷 right here. It’s a bio:

Little Thunder, international comic artist and illustrator who was born in Hong Kong in 1984. She knew drawing would be her life-time partner since she was a little child.

Having devoted herself into comic and illustration with passion and consistent hard in the past 15 years she has become very experienced and creative in great diversity of styles, elements, ideas and techniques. Over the years, she has her works published in Hong Kong, China and Europe.

At an age of 11, she first submitted her artwork to a comic magazine and got the same published with very much praise. Her art talent was confirmed at the time. Since then, she kept working very hard for her creative work in all spare time after school and got most of them published. This year, the 25 year-old LITTLE THUNDER has become much more famous and internationally recognized. Her first publication in Hong Kong has been published by “Kubrick” in July 2009. In addition, she collaborates with a Belgium publication “Darguard” and has her full colour comic “Kylooe” series published in France.

Apart from illustration and graphic design, she is also an amateur of photography, Chinese medicine and acupuncture.

To attach yourself to a larger, further understanding of the Little Thunder 門小雷 world, feel free to either search Little+Thunder (if this post is old enough for there to be new posts about her in our archives,) or head on over to her Blogbus blog or Flickr account or Facebook account. All are welcome!

Now check out these show photos, as taken by a friend of Thunder.

And beware the Spongebob!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Super awesome!

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

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

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

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

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

It’s what you’ve always wanted. The world over the past forty or fifty years was/is so full of kitsch that I don’t doubt that we’ll never stop “uncovering” treasures such as this ruby you’re about to swallow. The Bay City Rollers sing their hit single “Saturday Night” in front of an audience of elderly citizens who are so excited to be there it is unbelievable. And wait until you see the lady knitting!

Oh Ann Margret is there too, rocking some HARD fashion. Friggin HARD AS HELL.

Also watch out for some really enthusiastic dancing.

I’ve got to let you know what the deal is with the watermark in the corner, too. It’s VJ Tom Yaz. In promotion of his undoubtedly fantastic video jockey business, he releases videos he’s got on file to the world via his Yahoovideo page. If you’re interested in hiring this excellent man, he’s in the Boston area and has been doing gigs since 1981 up to the present. He’s at http://tomyaz.com/, definitely consider hiring him. For sure. He rocks.

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

The following is a collection of photos as shot by John, Pubes, and Roam, all of them from the Obey Giant Clothing Line. I’ve included here the shots of early in the day and during the show, but purposely left out the after-party shots so you could go check them out at the post they have going on the official Obey Clothing blog. Look at this madness! A million billion people showed up for this masterworks show by Shepard Fairey. Rumors said there’d only be a set of large portrait canvasses, but BANG! There’s just so much more than that. Album covers, rubyliths, retired stencils, giant canvasses, small, medium, invisible, everything!

Best show ever. Of all time. You’ll maybe want to also take a look at the Shepard Fairey archive we’ve got going here on WFDJ if you’d like more info on the show, as this is just the actual event itself.

And if you happened to be there and got some shots, please feel free to send em on over or point us in the right direction, as all the coverage in the world is never enough!

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

You know that terrible feeling you get when spring comes and everyone is all happy but you’re kinda bummed out because you can’t wear your big ugly boots anymore? That’s like kinda sorta the opposite feeling people who garage sale get. The garage sale people (and me, I’m one of them) get really pumped up. They go get their cup of quarters, their fanny packs, their walking shoes, visors, and maybe even their water bottle ready. They have all this stuff ready, and they get out there, and they buy stuff. They buy stuff they might never have ever thought about needing, and they pay 10 cents for it. The photo set you’re about to lay your eyeballs on is called “!GARAGE SALE!”, taken by Caroline Palla.

Photographer Caroline Palla had a hankering. A hankering for a journey of weird proportions. So where did she go? To AMERICA. Yes! Perhaps you’ve heard of the epic 127 Corridor Sale, the one that runs through the states of Ohio, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama? Yes, she went there.

*I realize that “To AMERICA” doesn’t make much sense to the majority of WFDJ readers, so I think mentioning that artist Caroline Palla comes straight outta Zurich, Switzerland.

Read this mission statement, it’s excellent!

Garage sales are part of a do-it-yourself-culture, where people help themselves and create a parallel economy. My work traces this otherwise unmapped trade and reflects on the ever-changing value of objects under given circumstances. I create a document of every item before letting it re-enter the commodity circuit through my own garage sales/exhibitions, using a scanner or a camera. As the project progresses, other materials such as sales receipts, invitation cards, polaroids, texts and more documents are added to create a snowball effect. Each garage sale generates new material for an ever-growing image database.

The photos you’re delighting yourself in looking at here are only a small portion of the 120 photos in the !GARAGE SALE! extended set. Will we ever see all of them all? Please miss Carolina Palla please, oh yes, that would be amazing. Some gallery! I am looking in your direction.

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

Hooray! Minneapolis hero gigantic mural painter Isaac Arvold has a new project on his hands here, and he hands it right over to World Famous Design Junkies to put on blast! And so here it is, a relatively mega painting on canvas, 12 feet by 12 feet square, painted, drawn, then painted by Arvold, assisted in part by Paper Tiger*. The painting in question here features Hennepin Bridge & Grainbelt Beer sign from the north side of Minneapolis. They’ve sort of been overgrown by some vine-ridden growth and doughnuts. That’s what Minneapolis really is, so it’s very appropriate to show the truth here I think. To tune up the interactivity of this project, Arvold took a huge long video of the entire process, 10 days mashed into a little over 4 minutes of video.

*Paper Tiger, aka John Samels, is also a Minneapolis hero, as he is a DJ in the rap supergroup Doom Tree. I think you’ll find, if you take a look, that quite a few of the talented ladies and gentlemen in the Minneapolis art and music scene(s) are pals.

It’s a big fun creativez tea party!

The music you’re hearing is comprised of beats strung together skillfully by Paper Tiger, who incidentally has his first solo record due out later this year.

This painting took 10 days from start to finnish, 12 to 17 hours each day.

AND after it’s all done at the photographers booth, it will be looking for a home! So if you know anyone who takes in homeless canvasses, give a peep!

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

BONUS NOTE: You’ll notice several t-shirts and sweatshirts being worn during the video: a white P.O.S. Glover Skull shirt, a Doomtree Classic hoodie, an MF DOOM “Throw” hoodie, a Minnesota Pride shirt, and some other stuff that’s equally as shirtish, I’m sure.

DOUBLE BONUS: Don’t cry because it’s over.

How hop to get! My friend. My esteemed colleague and partner in interwobbling, Design Professor Erik Brandt, is having so many well-deserved honors in these new days! Today I am happy to pass on the word of his invitation to speak and workshop at an old school and blossoming location of his, Virginia Commonwealth University. Please learn more below, and if you are in the area, it would be a fantastic opportunity for you to go see him speak words to the world. Ask him questions about broken plugins on wordpress.

Read this basic re-creation of the original set of information below.

Above: Event poster by John Malinoski, 2010. Photo: John Dixon, 1997. The rabbit lives! El Conejo, a conglomerate character that first rose back in 1997, the spirit of which still vibrates awkwardly here, and especially here. A special thanks to my dear friend and mentor, John Malinoski, for making this poster.

I am humbled and delighted to announce that I have been invited back to my beloved Virginia Commonwealth University as part of the Objects+Methods Lecture series.

I am grateful that the visit will also include an exhibition of my work and a workshop with Rob Carter’s typography students. I am hopeful to see old friends and make new ones. A thousand thanks to my great friends and mentors, Mary McLaughlin and John Demao for their kind invitation. ¡Abrazos!

My friends and students from the past twelve years will remember how often I have talked about the pivotal time in my life when I was a MFA candidate at VCU. The song below, often played on Geotypografika to mark moments of special joy, was taught to me on the rocks of the James River, fishing with my great teacher, Akira Ouchi.

Honto ni, we were long compass and short compass, creating endlessly irregular pathways of searching and questions. We were together, in old school days, and we, please believe me, sing this song still today.

Avanti popolo alla riscossa,
bandiera rossa, bandiera rossa!
Avanti popolo alla riscossa,
bandiera rossa trionferá!

The exhibition will open Friday, March 5 at 6PM (1509 Main St., Richmond, VA), and the lecture will be on Monday, March 8 at 4:30PM at the Grace Street Theater.
Servus, Freunde!

Above: El Conejo (Ol’ Knobby Knees), May Day, 1997. Photo: John Dixon.

VIVE le dessin graphique! El Conejo VIVE! ¡ABRAZOS a todos!

Hasenfuss Videography: Urbi et Orbi (2002), North Lincoln Hills by Way of Ulan Bator, Mongolia (2003, with Elisabeth Workman); and finally, Kölner Klonnen Kollone (2003).

When the learner returns to represent as the master, he has lessons to teach the new learners. He also returns to continue to learn. This is the true nature of the force, and I vouch for El Conejo in saying he is a true Jedi Master.

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

So here’s a thing. In this post is a few pictures dealing with Design Walk in at Bios in Athens, Greece. Designed and executed by Nassos Kappa, the most striking element in the presentation of this project is the picture you see above. Circle posters! How devastatingly powerful they look. How wonderful they’d be to apply to the walls! And what wonders could be created with the tool that cut these pieces of papers into circles.

Here’s a bit more information on the project that this wonder emanates from, direct from the designer Kappa:

Design Walk 09 — [hosted at Bios] On the 3rd annual Design Walk in Athens, Bios transformed into a live network of greek artists, photographers, designers, musicians and journalists, hosting selection of their work. I was invited to participate in the big salon of design, really honored to be in the same screen with great greek designers.

Bonus: a couple of images from Kappa’s Design Walk 2010 work.

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

Yes! That’s what your whole body will be saying if you tune yourself in to the rockabilly culture of Japanese greaser culture. Photographer Alessandro Zuek Simonetti was cool enough to take the time to capture one of the events that keeps this culture lit: ABC Rebel Night! That stands for “Always Be Cool” and it takes place monthly in Brooklyn!

The photos below were taken at a Tiki Bar called Otto’s Shrunken Head, but if you’re gonna go from now on I think they always hold it at a hotel (check the site for postings, it’s kind of a mobile sort of deal if you know what I mean, doggie.)

Rockabilly rock your head off! Notice the hair. That slicked back look took hold in the greasy, greasy 1950′s and never really let go. It’s never been mainstream, always on the counter side of culture. Dig the beats, too! Rockabilly’s the songs of hot-rods, white t-shirts, and blue jeans. Plus they get a bit of turntabling and breakdancing in there for kicks!

And it’s all about having a rockin good time. Enjoy these Alessandro Zuek Simonetti photos and don’t forget to look at the rest of his stuff too, he’s a photographer who shoots almost exclusively in black and white. I recommend his other NYC set. Look for the cross and skateboard if you wanna find which one you wanna get me as a print.

Black and white ho!

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

Hoootah! Our hero and friend super-designer Erik Brandt is in Bolivia! And you know what that means – lots of typographically amazing photos! Typography is a specialty of the eyes for Herr Brandt, and his camera helps him help us to understand the lovliness of his environment. Explore with me, and him, if you will, a collection of 120+ photographs of graphic design and lettering lovliness from the city of La Paz, Bolivia!

Point of special interest: while you’re browsing, take special care to see the manhole covers, sewer covers that are spread throughout the set. They’re all just splendid. Then of course let your eyeballs taste the broken and perfect sets of letters from all around the city.

From the fantastic blog of mister Brandt:

This coming week, I am delighted to be traveling to La Paz, Bolivia to attend the BICeBé 2009, Bienal Internacional del Cartel Bolivia. Organized by Susana Machiado and David Criado, it promises and amazing array of international speakers, workshops, and exhibitions.

And so here we are, the main set of lovely photos. I cannot express enough how much of an influence Erik Brandt has had on everything you see here. Everything as in World Famous Design Junkies and your everloving-publisher, me, Chris Burns. Erik Brandt is a professor at my Alma Mater the Minneapolis College of Art and Design. There he spreads the knowledge that only a world-traveled typography collector can teach.

Indulge in the following set, and do not forget to visit Brandt’s news feed http://geotypografika.com/ often as possible. Click the heck out of it and learn yourself some typographic mathematics!

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

This post is a collection of hundreds of Star Wars photos from the set, of the movies, and from the promotional shots of the 70′s and 80′s. Doesn’t matter how you feel about Star Wars, it’s affected the way you work. The world you live in today is the world you live in today because of Star Wars. You’d better believe that. Its basically like this: Luke Skywalker: New York, Princess Leia: Los Angeles, Han Solo and Darth Vader: Minneapolis.

These have been scrounged from all over the internets. If you are one of the photographers of these phantastic photos, shoot me an email or a comment here. If you’d like to take credit for bringing an image here to the internet, I give you a hearty thank you and internet hand shake. If you’ve got photos you’d like to add to the collection, feel free to also contact!

This post is composed of photos from the movies, (the original trilogy,) making-of photos, a few posters, products, and advertisements. MOSTLY it’s photos from cut scenes and promotional photos. Everything is super amazing and very wild.

Star Wars: one of, if not the greatest non-Jesus brands in history.

UPDATE: There is now another Rare Star Wars Photos post by the name of More Star Wars Rarities. More on-set, behind the scenes, during shots, and good time havin by the crew.

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

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!

For some of you, this is your second time hearing about the confederate flag Obama situation. For the rest of you, hello there! Get ready for a strange journey! Right here we’ve got one real-as-can-be, genuine as the day is long Obama stars n’ bars flag. For most of you, the instant reaction is going to be of disgust: the flag of the confederate states of america has and will always mean slavery and racism. But for the rest, you’re looking at another thing: why is Shepard Fairey’s HOPE image sitting next to that symbol. This can’t be real!

Oh it’s real, mama, it’s really real.

Personally I think it’s really just a social abnormality, sort of a “what if these two things were together” sort of thing. OR another thing I think it could be, which I enjoy more: the stars n’ bars flag there is both a symbol of rebellion and strength as well as a sign of racism – what if it means that Obama is so great, so amazing, that even the KKK can get on board? Or maybe The South approves of Obama because of his policies regarding The South?

Yes that’s it.

Anyways I bought it. And here’s the unboxing.

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

Hello all you ninjas in training. I want to tell you of my support for all of your hard work and my congratulations on choosing such a lofty goal. This is my sister and I in one of our earlier sparring sessions when we were just beginning with orange and green ninja belts. It’s some time in the early 90′s, probably 1991, Halloween. Check the colors! The combos!

Explore the intricacies of this singular photographic evidence of our young elite skill and aesthetic understanding.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies fashion category, not to mention it being an obvious part of the World Famous Design Junkies pizza party.

Here’s a DIY project of ease and excellence if ever have I seen one. Designer Fabio Parizzi had the idea to print using nothing but sunlight. How would one do this? One would have to use something that acts as a stencil, the sun to shine through the stencil, and a surface that would agree to fade on command. What Fabio Parizzi has done is make a poster using this concept saying “Every Thing Appears Out of ****- ***”.

The blank spots representing the word “nothing.”

While most posters are made by adding material to paper, this one is made by taking away. That makes it opposite. Also a way to take this sort of project further would be to keep track of the time the sun hit the poster: temporal invisible ink!

This reminds me of another fantastic poster project whose creation process is quite a bit dirtier. It never fails to amaze me how many different ways to make a poster there are that have NOT been done yet. Get to work!

A celebration of the sun!

Welcome to this year’s World Famous Design Junkies Halloween Contest! So spooky! This years prize is the very same watch we posted about a few days ago: Vannen Artist Watches Limited Edition Halloween Exclusive watch by “Dirty” Donny Gillies. It rings in at a fabulous $85 worth of beautiful time-keeping plastic, metal, and ink, and it could all be yours!

CONTEST COMPLETE Winner declared below!

Congratulations to Jessica Trevizo from Los Angeles California! Apparently she is a broke art student, which just fabulous if you ask me.

UPDATE: She’s received her watch and t-shirt and is just-a-jumpin for joy! Thank you everyone who participated!

All you gotta do is tweet!

This year’s Halloween contest is so easy to enter, it will rip your flesh apart. Once you know how simple and enjoyable this contest is, you’ll surely stab your eyeballs out and serve them as an entree at your costume party. But leave your wrists intact! You’ll need them (or at least one) to wear your brand spanking new Vannen watch!

For more info on the watch you’ll be winning, head on over to the [Snot Nosed Arm Watches] post. You get one of those: blind-packaged so you might get the black one, or you might get the Toxic one. Who knows!? Both are fantastically wild. BONUS: Also included in the prize package is a brand spankin new Vannen Artist Watches t-shirt, hot off the presses.

HOW TO ENTER THE CONTEST:

1. Follow us on twitter http://twitter.com/design_junkies/.

2. Find you very favorite World Famous Design Junkies post and tweet it using this format: [#DJUNKHALLOWEENCONTEST @design_junkies @vannenwatches my favorite post is:] adding the address of your favorite post at the end, using tinyurl if needed.

3. Report back on Wednesday night to see if you’ve won!

RULES: A. You’ve got to have friends on twitter. No setting up a new account just to enter the contest with. If you have no twitter account, make one and make friends QUICK so as to trick us. It will work, trust me.

B. You may enter as many times as you like with different posts. I’m sure you’ve got just a whole fistfull of favorite posts, and each tweet enters you into the contest an additional time, increasing your odds.

C. The winner will be picked at random.

D. Ask any questions in the comment section below!

E. Have fun!

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.