Hello all you would-be distributors of the word to the masses without money. This is your new bible on what to do, (and more importantly, in that, what NOT to do), when distributing your message. It is also important at this moment to mention that everything you see above and below is illegal, and that if you try graffiti, you’re going to get shot, or worse, arrested. The author of this article, me, Chris Burns, is verst only in the small-time wheatpasting technique and small-town spraypainting. Keep that in mind, but also know that these rules are basically universal when it comes to street-trasmissions of the arrestable kind.
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Welcome yourself back to the ATARI 2600, one of the definitive moments in both home entertainment and interactive communication in our modern world. In these early years (1970’s, 80’s) of video game distribution, there was a bit of a learning curve. What should be done about advertising and branding these games we’ve got to sell, said the interactive masters of the day, the games are fun, but there’s no way we can use these little pixels as the covers of their packages! ZAP! There was a split. In this age came the strange world of describing not what was actually in the game,* but what you were supposed to imagine while you were playing it. *In most cases, that is.
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Photographers Pauline Fabry and Daniel Torz have taken it upon themselves to keep the world on top of itself. Here in this post is their collection of freshness. Fabry and Torz photograph a set of people who’ve got style and finesse, plus one man underwater, with a bit of plastic rap. Look through this group of serious looking folks and note how nice and shiny fabulous it keeps them in it’s everyoung plastic state. It’s a holdup!
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You’ve seen them. Videogame Classics made retro and simplified, the “Now Panic and Freak Out” sign, and yes, even a lobster with human hands. Real good stuff, real good. And it’s all over the place, these picture sharing sites like ffffound, dropular, and even the upencoming We Heart It. But where do they all come from? These supercharged pictures are all done by designer Olly Moss, master of the internets.
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And the Teen Titans are now the Brat Pack?! Well that’s just silly. Silly beyond belief! Delve in, if you dare, at the small but fabulously enjoyable collection of comic book hero-to-album cover conversions of illustrator Cliff Chiang. Inside I think you’ll find at least several of your vinyl album and comic book fantasies come to fruition at long last.
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It’s a toy that teaches kids to become font designers! Look out world, soon there’ll be an army of extremely detail oriented youngsters on the horizon. This thing right here is called Letterboxes. It’s a simple cardboard form with printing on it that folds up to a box with black shapes that when combined in the right (or wrong!) combinations, create letters and numbers. It’s got a companion font with it, too!
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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.
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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.*
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What do you know, marriage isn’t so bad! Apparently now you get a nice shag carpet / fuzzy covered ball instead of the normal 1 ton! That’s what I like to hear. This and several other items also included in this post are sculptures put together and constructed by designer Karin Nilsson who goes under the “Crafts” banner at HDK design school in Göteborg, Sweden. Love the deconstructions!
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This lovely bunny painting was done in watercolor by designer / artist Alice Wong. It was an assignment in which the student was to find a “famous” painting and re-configure it with an animal in place of a human. Strange! I’d love to get my hands on the rest of the paintings done in your class, Wong. This reminds me of those cartoons where animals replace humans in every aspect, as if the earth had chosen furry fellows instead of us meaty humans, but their society had chosen the same moves to make.

See: Planet of the Apes.
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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.”
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