Let me get rather completely and utterly technical for a moment so those of you that’d know what’s going on here in such a way can get more into it: Mitchell is working on a package called CalcNet, networking software which uses his “Doors CS” – shell and GUI for TI calculators. In the video you’re about to see, he’ll tell you he’s demonstrating the high reliability and throughput of his network.

To demonstrate his network, he’s running a game called NetPong, a version of Pong made specifically to play over a multi-calculator network. Marvel at his coolness for connecting so many screens, then join in the antics by checking out the linked documents

- try it all yourself. Ziff!

[Via Hack A Day]

I was writing a post for the greatest industrial design project posting site on the planet Yanko Design today and I happened upon an amazing quote. It’s the one you see above. It’s got LEGO in it. Sometimes things so simple as a recollection of someone else’s childhood ring such a true bell in you it brings a tear to your eye. That happened to me here. Not just about the building block toy, but about the knowing what’s fun and knowing what brings you joy as a kid remaining lit through to your adult life.

Thustly, I have made this LEGO post. It is full of LEGO.

The quote above comes from a multi-talented industrial designer by the name of James Howlett. He’s up in the UK and his online portfolio resides at http://jameshowlett.co.uk/ He’s got amazing ideas. Search for his name in quotes “James Howlett” on Yanko Design starting at midnight (that’s when the post I wrote will be posted) and check out how it all plays out. Hint: it’s rather do-it-yourself and oh Idunno… block inspired?

On a slightly side-note, I’ve heard people go nuts when other people say “LEGOS” because that’s technically not correct. This reminds me of the band The Prodigy aka Prodigy – called both things not because of mis-spoken terms, but because the guy in the band who was in charge of approving album designs saw that adding or subtracting the “THE” made for a clearer or more awesome message. That’s graphic design.

Now let’s look at some LEGOS.

Also BTW I was going to tabulate about how LEGO affected my life, but it’s incalculable. I would be a different person today if it weren’t for LEGO. Thank you LEGO for being there as a tool for me to teach ME how to build. Love and hearts forever.

The following photos come from the following photographers: DuneChaser, BatBoy2424, MSKogly, Eva The Weaver, Eddie Scholl, DZ Knight 2003, FATIMA, WunzTwice, Vintage LOVE, KendramCCracken, SavaTheAggie, AndTheMonkey, LetterB, Syclone16, Josh Ellingson, WarpDesign, GreenColander, Tim Ellis, PeriGirl, click0happy, jRittenHouse, JPob, Matt Downey, Sava The Aggie, Fraggle Rawker, CC Chapman, Kaptian Kobold, IAmAdam, splorp, UESC, bjmurphy234, Ben Spark, Dlofink, buttershug, LegoJunkie, and Jammarz. Thanks for LEGO lovelies!

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

With the greatest of ease. Actually they’re balloons, of course, and they represent the bubbles found within the candybar that goes by the name “Aero.” It’s a Nestlé Chocolate sort of bar, last I checked, and it tastes pretty alright. This commercial is amazing. It’s more than a commercial, it’s an exercise in glorious graphic activation and collection. Setting up the pins and knocking them down. Really, for real. The skateboarder in these images (and video) is the fabulous Bob Burnquist, a man I became familiar with a few years ago when the greatest game of all time came out: Tony Hawk Pro Skater. He’s part of a special family of those involved. But that’s got nothing to do with this, does it? Yes of course it does! All fate flows according to the will of the great magnet. You’d better believe it!

This man, this skateboard king Bob Burnquist is a special, special fellow, and choosing him to skateboard through balloons representing chocolate is always the right thing to do. Good job! The director of this video is “Skate Fairy” aka Ty Evans, a dude whose got an amazing track record and a mysterious presence on these internets.

He’s doin it right.

So these bubbles are the bubbles of an Aero bar. Buy a candybar if you love this video, I bet it’s trying to say. What it says to me is: balloons don’t slow you down when you’re skating a bowl, pipe, or wall, so using balloons to hyperize your movement in a skateboard video is completely a legit and amazing thing to be doing.

Fun, fun, so much fun.

Enjoy the video here and/or peek through the gallery below for some images to share with all your skateboard buddies.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies sk8terb8ters 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.

This is a forever project. It shouldn’t and hopefully wont ever stop. It’s called “Wish I Was There…” and is initiated by designer / artist Annie Yiling Wang, who aims to turn her anxieties about having to be in two places at once into one gigantic global hug! Of course, as the squirrel says, it must be done one nut at a time. Thus, the way this project works is that anyone who wishes to participate takes a cut-out image of Annie Yiling Wang and pastes it into photos of theirs, vacation, at home, eating breakfast, surfing, anywhere! And we sing this photo song all together!

Here’s the original set of words from Annie Yiling Wang that equal a call to fun action for the whole world. Above you’ll see a contribution from Maggie Ha, then then a medium size version of the cutout of AYW, there’s also a large size if you wanna go huge.

Project description: This is for Ideation & Process’s “open work” week. We were to base our project on our dreams. My dreams revolve around the anxiety of having to be at two places at once and I suppose from my fear of losing out on missed opportunities. But with this photo of me, I CAN BE EVERYWHERE!! ALL AT ONCE!

Instructions for you, the participant:
1.Download an appropriate image size.
2. Superimpose my body in an environment, preferably a photo of a place that you personally have visited. (I could be standing right next to you, behind you, etc…)
3. Upload to this flickr group : www.flickr.com/groups/1119727@N22/
(if you don’t have a flickr account, email it to me and I will upload it/ romance.languages(AT)Gmail.com )

PS. It doesn’t have to look real. I have class next Tuesday (april 28) so if I could get it by then I’d be super happy!

That was April of 2009. It’s been over a year since this project began! I encourage you to continue to insert miss AYW into your own photos, uploading them then to flicker, hit the pool and make a lovely splash.

Thus far, contributors to this collection are as follows: Justin McKinley aka jjjjustin, Meredith Pearson, Andrew Herbst, Ann La La!, BWalbergh, Chamille Mies, Cornelius Coons, Mary Jolene Longshore, Kathy Kim, Maggie Ha, Write Something, Maura Kellyyy, Dagmarwm, Sean Tubridy of Blue Over Blue, zpoeschl, Hannahmation, Jenny Moxley, Becky Inducil, kindraishere aka Kindra Murphy, Neil, Ann, Gina Giampaolo, Charles Stewart III, Dustin McChesney, Andrew Herbst, mnelson419, and Samm Langer.

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

D.U. = Such amazing concepts that I’ve just got to assume they’re from a Different Universe. Holy wow and oh my goodness gracious. The motorcycles you’re about to see are designed by Mikhail Smolyanov aka Solif. He’s a bad mofo and he likes to design auto-related projects. The one’s I’m featuring here are his motorcycle collection, starting above with the tube-like ARX and working down into the wildly colored tame bikes. Completely fantastic by the standards of the standard motorcycle you’d see on the real world street today.

Mikhail Smolyanov is Russian, and runs his own personal news blog over at http://solifdesign.blogspot.com/ – check it out. He posts new stuff all the time, and it’s ripe for the picking. And when I say picking, I mean you publishers, it’s your job to make this man famous, famous because he is amazing and I want these bikes to make it to the creator floor. Let’s futurize this place, mothers! Let’s make Solif real life!

The motorcycles you see below go in this order with names: ARX 2, ARX 3 (I don’t know what happened to ARX 1), ARX 3 Trike, Della, C-Org (this is the orange and yellow one we’re at now,) Speeder Mechanicus, Steampunk Style V2 Black Widow, and of course the Steampunk Style V1 Black Widow, which is the same but not the same.

Oh my god want. Want all. All want now. Mikhail Smolyanov’s weapon of choice is 3D Studio Max. Are you in to the rendering of 3D objects? Yeah I totally rendered an egg one time. It was amazing. But I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a whole load of renderings whilst working for Yanko Design, and these are good. So, so very good.

Love Smolyanov. Love Solif. Spread bike love.

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

Oh my goodness mister Brock Davis aka Laser Bread took some object, threw em at the ground, and BAM! They broke like they were dipped in liquid nitrogen. But they weren’t! In fact they were cut apart, very precisely, by a knife! An exacto-blade held by the hand of Davis himself! What a mindless madness! What a wild insanity! In fact, this idea’s factually, factastically perfect. Clearly the best one’s the duck.

Mister Davis is a king of just such unbelievable ideas as this one, take a peek through our Brock Davis search archive to see all the completely wild and crazin projects by his internet-supreme brain.

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

There’s a photographer named Alan Powdrill. He’s a photographer who has a name that is very similar to a tool. It’s just like Alan Power Drill. But that’s not his name, dude! That’s not what he is, either! He’s a totally amazing photographer holy crap! And he’s got a set of photos right here. It’s called “Wethead.” It’s a set of photographs of people getting a bucket of water poured over their head.

Well, not their head, their heads. One bucket each.

Also they all happen to be really mad. So very mad, upset, unhappy a

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

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.

First is last: one of the greatest fellows to ever do it goes by the name ESPO (“Exterior Surface Painting Outreach”) aka Stephen J. Powers. In a book that’s a grail for any writer or modern art enthusiast “The Art of Getting Over,” ESPO writes his rules of graffiti. These rules are copypasta’d below the gallery at the bottom of this post.

ABOVE: Photographed in Saint Cloud, Minnesota. Squirrel pasters.

ESPO’s rules work, they are important, but they’re directed only at the street art artist who’s planning on spraying their own name in giant, fantastic letters. The following rules apply to message pasters and backpack’n sticker stickers. That and first time or single-time spreaders, graphic designers, freelancers, artists, all that good stuff.

Let us begin! Do not start in the street. ESPO has a good idea for paint – start somewhere hidden, or equally alright, on a big wooden board at home. Above you’ll see a painting I did like a hundred years ago in a place that’s now demolished in STC, MN. It was in back of the world, basically inaccessible by anything other than foot. It was an abandoned warehouse that was so decrepit, only stone stood. A perfect place for paint.

If you’re not going the paint route, I recommend starting by placing rather than pasting, and with postcard or leaflet sized cards. These are a plenty-large surface for any message you should need to be spreading in this manner. They’re also easy to carry, and easy to carry in bulk. You can hold a handful of them at the same time as pulling one or two out for each little place you place them. And they can fit in the pocket of your jacket.

Dress the part. The best places for spreading a message to the people you want to spread to is the same places you go to on a daily basis – that is, unless they aren’t people like you. Find out where your audience goes on the regular, where their eyes wander to, and how they generally get their information in the offline world. Place your pieces there.

Of course, you can easily destroy your message doing this, provided you place it somewhere that makes people very mad. Generally these places are easy to scope. It’s the ideal locations you want to head to. After laying down fliers, pasting pasters, spraying paint for a while, these places will begin to show themselves to you. It’s just like typography or racing cars. Eventually the car tells you what it needs, eventually the letters show you how much space they’d like.

Places, People, Things NEVER to work with:
1 . Autos or Bikes – these are personal, everyone hates when their car is messed with.
2 . Windows – windows are for looking through, not at. Unless you’ve got permission.
3 . Clothing – unless it’s for comedy.
4 . Trees – when you staple a tree, you injure the tree. It will die faster because of you. Bad.
5 . Phones or computers – these are also personal, off limits.
6 . Merchandise – do not put your message on a bag of chips unless the message is about chips or made to look like a label for a bag of chips. This is where advertisers work, and on the whole, it’s on the way out – people’ve become numb.
7 . Furniture (indoor or outdoor) – If someone has to move your message to sit down and relax, they’ll be mad, and not only that, they might get so mad as to just sit on it, then fart.
8 . On the ground.
9 . Places where the medium (your paper or sticker paper or whatever else you’re using) will end up trash, polluting the world within a day. Obviously EVER should be your goal here, but if you put a piece of paper outside a building in Minnesota, it’s going to get soggy, it’s going to fall to the ground, a duck is going to eat it and die.
10 . Personal houses, homes, houses of worship.

Basically everywhere paper or paint should never go. Do not stick paper or stickers to places where the first reaction people will have is to rip it down.

Places where your message SHOULD go to be most effective:
0 . In the shadows of giants (see above: St. Peter’s Cathedral in the background.)
1 . In the front of newspaper stands.
2 . On desks.
3 . On tables.
4 . On countertops.
5 . In backpacks (of drunk people where available.)

6 . On posts and poles of all kinds (provided they aren’t still alive.) Above: A pole in view of the Eiffel Tower. Double whammy! Also you’ll see at least another qualifier soon (#16)
7 . Construction-site walls. This also covers basically anything around a construction site, something that won’t be around forever, something that is in-place for the time being – including places where a window has been broken out and is covered by a board.

8 . Hidden walls, or in the case above, outdoor hallways.
9 . Alleyways.
10 . Places of advertising (not buildings, I mean stacks of paper, billboards, signs, busstops), unless they’re really amazing. I know a sewing store up on the NE side of town that has their own hand-made 3D rocket as an OPEN sign. Do not fuck with that.
11 . Electrical boxes (big, green, gray, ugly, open, amazing).

12 . Down by the train tracks *but BE CAREFUL there’s crazies down there.
13 . Dirty bathroom stalls that already have lots of writing.
14 . Walls backstage at music venues.
15 . The backs of signs (STOP, YEILD, LEFT TURN)

16 . Places identified as workable by other like-minded individuals. Even the fronts of signs can become alright to stick a sticker on, provided enough other people have already rendered it unrecognizable.

17 . On the other hand, if you must paste somewhere where it wouldn’t normally be OK, paste it somewhere noone can see – for example, if you’re at the top of the Eiffel tower, put your sticker under the handrail. True story.

Take command of available resources. Find a printer you can use for free, then scavenge for paper. Paper is EVERYWHERE. If you can’t find blank paper, design a page that is mostly ink with the letters popped out – design for your medium, make it work, make it free. Unless you want to invest money into this adventure, in which case, in my opinion, you’re defeating the purpose of the deed and of doing the deed in the way you’re doing it.

I’ve done graffiti for these purposes, and they’re all just amazing:
1 . Because I wanted to express my feelings of elation to the world, and I didn’t have time to wait for legal means to give me that platform.
2 . Because I had to. That rush is unique.
3 . Because I had a message, a need, and no money.
4 . It’s quick. It’s easy. It’s fun.

The only reasons you SHOULDN’T be doing graffiti:
1 . It’s dangerous.
2 . You’re busy chilling out.
3 . You don’t feel the need to do the deed.

Do not fuck around. That one artist Banksy says that getting plastered on alcohol then going out to do graffiti is a good idea. It might be! But not when you’ve got a lot to loose. Don’t do graffiti needlessly. If you’ve got the need, do the deed. If you’re going out there to get respect, to represent for some sort of murder gang, drug dealers, shoe salesmen, then feck you, you get no respect.

But get up. There’s lots of space out there, and lots of ugliness. Everyone who can get involved and has the opportunity to get involved has the duty to get involved. I say so. But there is rules. Honor amongst thieves is nothing compared to how shunned you’ll get for ratting out a friend to the police in this business. That’s hate for life business. This is the business of a hear no evil, smell no evil at the same time as working in a world that will shut you down in the real world for REAL if they catch you.

So stay safe, don’t get caught, and don’t be stupid. And have fun AFTER you’re done.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies street art category. BELOW You’ll first find the cover of the essential graffiti text “The Art of Getting Over” by ESPO. Then you’ll see a couple images of that man himself, in his work area, as photographed by The Selby. Next is that picture you also see above, an excellent example of some electrical box pasting. After that, for the most part, you’ll see examples of places of interest collected by me during my days of misadventures in the left and lower left side of Europe. For the most part Edinburgh Scottland, Paris France, Rome Italy, and London England. It was in these places I placed the squirrel sticker to make it feel like home, and it worked out great.

BEGIN ESPO TERRITORY

Espo’s Rules Of Graffiti

As published in The Art of Getting Over:

You suck until further notice

It’s gonna take a long time before we even acknowledge your existence, even longer before we can bear to look at that foul scribble you call your name. To speed the process of acceptance, you can A) Choose a clever name that defies the norm of simple-minded slang. An example of a good name is “ARGUE” (RIP). It looks good when written, sounds cool when spoken, and conveys a combattive attitude. On the other hand, “ENEMA” (actual name) looks, sounds, and conveys a shitty attitude. BE CHOOSY. B ) Use paint, gain a thorough knowledge of supplies, remember that permission walls, stickers, and dust tags are small parts of a balanced diet, be bold, learn a style of writing for every occassion,and write your name bigger every time you go out.

Jealousy is a diesease for the weak

Your heart is your greatest possession, dont let it get taken from you.

Dont write on houses of worship, people’s houses in general, other
writer’s names, and tombstones. Writing on memorial walls and cars is beef beyond belief. Furthermore, involving civilians in your beef is grounds for dismissal. These are are the five fingers of your right hand. Get to know them well. Give soul claps, firm handshakes, and throw smooth bolo punches.

Although being a toy seems undesirable, you should enjoy it while you can. At this stage you can bite all you want with no remorse. All your elders will say is, ” Awww isn’t that cute, kootchie kootchie koo.” So steal that dope connection, rob that color scheme. and loot whole letterforms. Dont worry about giving any credit, we’ll pat ourselves on the back and brag how we’re influencing the next generation. However, style isnt a crutch or a schtick. It is understanding why that connection you bit flows, or why that color scheme bumps. Style is the process to an appealing end. Once you got it down to a science, you can reinvent letterforms to suit yourself. This creative growth will amaze the old and young alike. Pretty soon somebody will steal your secret sauce and the cycle will be renewed. If this happens to you, don’t bitch about not getting your due. Graffiti is the language of the ignored. If your style is stolen, someone heard you speaking. You got what you wanted from the beginning, some attention, you big baby.

It must be noted that the vandal squad loves graffiti. Their job requires
them to fiend for graff as much as you do. When you wreck enough walls, they’ll want to meet you. Just like the ball huggers outside the graff shop, they’ll recite every spot you hit, with the difference being you’ll also hear the Miranda Warning. To postpone this, go solo as much as possible. Dont write with anyone that wont fight for you. Don’t be paranoid, but be careful. If you avoid writing on pristine properties, you’ll stay in misdemeanor territory, and you wont divert the cops’ attention from pastry and caffiene consumption (consult local laws to be sure). Remember, if they didn’t see you do it, it’s almost impossible for them to win a conviction without your own damming testimony. Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP! Giving a cop info on another writer will doom you to a life of ridicule, from cops and kids alike, with no parole.

There’s nothing wrong with knowing your the shit as long as you are. But once you reach that conclusion, your one foot over the edge of falling off. Watch your step fathead, there’s no shortage of people chanting, “JUMP JUMP JUMP!” There are plenty of writers that have been painting well for the better part of 20 years, and your posing and fronting looks retarded next to them. Get back to work, you “never was” slouch. In conclusion, graffiti is free, impresses the girls, is heroic in our couch potato culture, will provide you with a million stories to tell at parties, and a sure cure for the inner-city blues. If it’s not fun, you’re doing it wrong or have been doing it too long. So get going, fame awaits the fly among you.

END ESPO TERRITORY

I’d like to thank ESPO at this point for being the only dude to write a comprehensive rules of graffiti that was easily findable on the interwebs. This sort of stuff should be available in every corner store so kids don’t hurt themselves. And that’s for real.

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.

Lets be straight up about this right now.

This gallery post is packed up full of ATARI game manual covers from the 2600, 5200 and nothing else. In this one product you will find the first voice of the game producer as spoken directly to the interactive-home-entertainment user.

This is inside the box.

Now take a look around in this gallery, and see many models. Along with the magnificent paintings and illustrations came several setups that lots of different games used. What you see above is an ever-so-slightly modified version of one of the more common layouts used by lots and lots of ATARI 2600 games. These black cover manuals have the title above, a picture in the middle, and copyright information below. Same font, same everything. It was embellishments that made the manual.

Notice then, will you, some of the impact and staying power lots of these books had. Take Donkey Kong for example. Look at that! It’s stayed basically the same graphics for hundreds of years! Then peel your eyeballskins back and experience the majesty of space travel with Space Shuttle – A Journey Into Space. And then there was Gas Hog, whose battlefield can only be entered one player at a time. Don’t worry, no Pitfalls here, only quality connections.

And for you Kevins in the audience, there’s Bounty Bob Strikes Back, which instead of being a book-type manual, folds out into a poster.

Also this sort of collection relies heavily on contributions from those with much more invested in the game. I’d like first to thank Atari Age, without a doubt the most complete and astoundingly devoted ATARI website this side of the internet. Go there for ANYTHING you might need concerning the ATARI phenomenon. Then let’s get into this list of other contributors: IHateMyScreenName, Retro Dude, Joe Kral, ewitch, SpaceInvaders, nickstone333, amster girl, Metal Misfit, djdac, DJ Romarcade, Amster, Meringues, Dionisio, PaperGhost, ZawTowers, Dimic, Hustler, John Mundy, Old Man Winter, Semper Novus, JBCurio, Willceau, Kuilman, Mr Phillip, and Old Man Musings.

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

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!

This tool, plastic rap, this material, is made to keep things in new condition, and this set of photos goes by the name “Keepfresh.” In it, a sort of tongue-in-cheek search for the truth behind the modern version of fashion addiction. Stayin fresh.

In these 35 photos find yourself a bit of weirdness. Components: one fashion conscious person, one bit of plastic rap, a bit of camera work.

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

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.

Everything you see below is by Olly Moss. It’s just a bunch of fantastic stuff! It’s simple, it’s beautiful, it’s custom made for today’s internet arena. It spreads like wildfire through the internets because of this reason above all: it’s all so very much fun to share.

SO MUCH FUN.

*NOTE: the ONLY photograph below is of the designer, Olly Moss, who can be contacted with the following: http://twitter.com/ollymoss, http://www.flickr.com/photos/ollym, olly@ollymoss.com : HIRE OLLY! I YELL AT YOU!

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

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.

When you are a comic illustrator (or inker, or any of those sorts of artists involved in the whole comic process,) you’ve got to do more than just work on the book to make your way. You’ve got to go to comic conventions. Lots of them! And when you do go there, and sit at a booth and hope someone comes up hoping for an autograph, you’ve got to have something sitting around for sale for them to buy so you can sign it!

This isn’t always true, in fact many artists are swamped by people wishing for them to sign their favorite comics, and there’s always the people who want body parts signed. But for those who come empty handed, there’s projects like these! Creative ways for artists to create a fun and unique bit of simplicity to sign for their adoring fans.

In this case, quite unique indeed.

Cliff Chiang’s taken several classic 12″ album covers, converting them into what’s very obviously their comic-world-counterpart. Electra is Flashdancing, Vampirella has the fashion sense of Duran Duran! Obviously. Explore this set and cross your fingers that this trend continues in Chiang’s work.

“Dear Batman: We accept the fact that we had to sacrifice a whole Saturday in Bat-detention for whatever it is we did wrong, but we think you’re crazy for making us write an essay telling you who we think we are. You see us as you want to see us: in the simplest terms, in the most convenient definitions. But what we found out is that each one of us is an archer, and a speedster, and a swimmer, a princess, and an acrobat. Does that answer your question? Sincerely yours, The Teen Titans.”

Thank you, John Hughes. Rest in peace.

-Cliff Chiang

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

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!

Designed by John Caserta and Jeremy Mickel

To promote the idea of producing this learning tool on a larger scale, the designers have released this free font! [LETTERBOX] OTF format – for use on non-commercial projects only!

Letterboxes Children of a young age play with small wooden blocks to learn the alphabet. Letters lead to words that lead into sentences and so on. Our oversized kraft boxes reintroduce the alphabet not as 26 distinct letters, but as the result of combining geometric parts. The 4-inch cubes may be viewed and stacked from any direction, creating unexpected shapes and letterforms. The boxes are made from recycled cardboard, delivered flat (assembling is part of the fun). This is a prototype. It is available for exhibit, licensing, etc. Credits: John Caserta, concept/design; Jeremy Mickel, digital typeface (downloadable)

Someone pick dis up! I want this thing produced now, go!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies gridwork 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!

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!

Above: “Ball and Chain” Karin Nilsson 2009

These objects were certainly constructed to destroy or make fun of social amalgamations created to keep businessmen in business and consumers shopping. The ball and chain in pink is of course my favorite, but the carved “diamonds” and the soft version of Marcel Duchamp’s “Fountian” are not to be missed!

Karin Nilsson – Applied Art – BA Level – Grade 1
Crafts – Ceramics karin.son@hotmail.com

Just what we were looking for in the World Famous Design Junkies 3D collection.

Above: “Greetings to Marcel” Below: “Forever”

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.

The original painting, incase you were wondering, was called “Girl with A Pearl Earring” and it was painted by Johannes Vermeer in oils.

This was a watercolor assignment where we had to find a famous painting, in this case a painting by Vermeer, known as “Girl with A Pearl Earring”, and substitute the person into an animal of our choice.

I chose a bunny =^^=!!!

Also included in this post are a few other works by Alice Wong, aka Alwong. She does watercolors and lithography. That’s a self portrait down there!

This post is part of the Unnatural Nature category.

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!

So it seems that there’s going to be a book coming out soon that’s a photo recounting of the Glow In The Dark tour that happened a year and a few months ago. The tour featured Kanye West as the headliner, Rihanna, Lupe Fiasco, and N.E.R.D.. It was pretty neat. People at the concert were told basically that if they took photos they’d be shot with lazers and chopped into bits. But we did it anyway. Here’s a bunch of lovely colors for you.

Some of the more flashy pictures you’ll see are actually of the crowd (because it was fabulous to see a sold-out arena all making the same hand movements) and of N.E.R.D. who just had one giant long LCD screen with lightening, water, disco balls, fire, everything going across it in flashing lights.

A couple of Rihanna, a couple of Lupe Fiasco, and a bunch of Kanye’s spaceship adventures.

Kanye, if you’re reading this: If you’d like these pictures to be taken down, just click and shout, otherwise take note of how medium-quality they are and see how it’ll more than likely sell some more books rather than hurt the movement of the pages.

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies Outer Space

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.

Set your eyes on this expanded look at the cover of the new CLONE magazine designed and fully illustrated by Grzegorz Domaradzki aka GABZ. It fills me with love for yellow and purple. Or violet. Whatever you want to call it. I’ve never seen faces illustrated with such grace in the color purple. I love them so much I can barely believe it. I’ve read CLONE magazine only a couple times, I think they were sitting in the waiting area at Rhymesayers. The inside’s pretty interesting, but the cover is where it’s at.

Below you’ll find a bunch of pictures, close and far, of the CLONE cover in question here. Of course, what are you going to ask about it though? Not much. It’s pretty much all there right in front of your now wet-tongued eyeballs.

I’m gonna look for some more colored penciled subject matters right about now. Some new contents with colored pencils like THIS. Because that’s what’s up today.

HELLO I’AM GABZ / LET’S TALK

Mobile +48 604 52 95 97

Email grzegorz.domaradzki@gmail.com

Address ul. Królewska 19 / 11 60 – 685 Poznań / Poland

See further works of GABZ’s and hire him too because he’s freelance as hell. Also I don’t know who’s illustrated there on the cover. They look nice though.

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.

Hooray for communication expansion! Industrial Designer / Superman Shane Crozier’s made a lovely little creature here to expand the way we simply peek at eachother by expanding emotion while also expanding personal space. How! How is that possible you might say. Well you just look at MeMe and you will understand. MeMe is a little LED-light-centered robot that runs on a SIM Card or a USB. You get your own, design it to look like you, then gift it to a friend with whom you’d like to stay connected.

Go home.

Click buttons.

Emotions expressed!

The little guy hypothetically works in tangent with computers and personal communication devices such as telephones and pads and such. To keep things current, each emotion is only displayed for a maximum 2 minutes… at which time the person will have found some coffee and their mood will have changed drastically.

SCENARIOS:
1-An elderly grandparent who has no internet or mobile can receive emotional visual messages from a family member with no presumed understanding of technology.
2-A mother on a business trip can keep in touch with her child
3-Long-distance lovers can use MeMe to keep in touch.

TECHNICAL:
Height: 100mm
Material: Polycarbonate

NOTE this is an entry to the current LED Emotionalize Contest by OSRAM
http://www.led-emotionalize.com/ideaDetails/index/ideaId/234
If you dig it, vote it!

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

What designer / filmmaker Kurt Ralske has done is to create a program which searches two full-length films and finds the two frames which are most similar, one from each. The programs compares only shapes within the image, yielding wild results the naked eye might never have glued together. Most excellent! This post contains all 8 published examples of the machine in action, starting with Joan of Arc / 2001 : A Space Odyssey (above.)

It’s in the numbers. Fate and probability reign.

The Inevitable
Video, duration 4:00
Edition of 5

“The Inevitable” was created with custom software written by the artist: the program searches through a database of movie files, comparing each frame with every other frame, looking for pairs of frames that resemble each other the most. “The Inevitable” presents the run-up to these pairs of matching frames. The program compares only shapes within the image (not color or content), leading to some pairings that resonate in unexpected ways. In the end, the inevitable twinned conclusion, regardless of genre, age, or nationality, is not simply a delightful coincidence: instead it has the claustrophobic and humbling quality of less-pleasant inevitabilities, like death and taxes.

“The Inevitable” was made possible in part by The Media Arts Fellowships (a program of Tribeca Film Institute, founded and supported by the Rockefeller Foundation) and The Experimental Television Center’s Finishing Funds program (supported by the Electronic Media and Film Program at the New York State Council on the Arts).

This post is from the World Famous Design Junkies found category.

The 39 Steps / 2001 : A Space Odyssey

One Flew Over The Cukoo’s Nest / Breakfast at Tiffany’s

Paris, Texas / The Golem

Breakfast at Tiffany’s / The 7th Seal

Valley of the Dolls / 2001 : A Space Odyssey

A Clockwork Orange / Rashomon

Taxi Driver / Superfly