This death-defying image is the world of Ron English. This is a man possessed with miraculous skill and a healthy addiction to his own personal vision of pop. And a squishy smooth style. That’s what I call it. Squishy and smooth. This Frankenstein picture is one of a collection of paintings that’ll be shown at the upcoming “Status Factory” Pop-Up Show, NYC September 12. It’s interesting, if you comb through the characters represented in R.E.’s paintings, you’ll see a lot of appropriate things, things you’d expect to be in a painting like this today, but then you’ll see something like… Casper the Friendly Ghost… or… Teletubbies. Things that, I don’t know about you, but rub ME in a strange way. Ron English is rummaging through the television in a way noone else is at the moment.

Sometimes it’s a little bit icky.

And when I say icky, I mean Lucy portrayed with big lady parts standing in front of a cartoon whore house, looking so, so, so frightening. Then I see yellow flowers with skull mouths and I say ohh, these are very nice!

And I can’t ever stop looking at the works of this magnificent man.

The picture above and the pictures below are all paintings that’ll be showing up in that “Status Factory” pop up show on September 12. This is a pop-up show which means it’ll either be there for a very short period of days or only one day. I suggest going there on Sunday just to be sure.

“Status Factory” Sunday the 12th of September at 3PM
Opera Gallery
382 West Broadway New York, NY
(flyer also below)

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

BONUS I’ve just learned that the first 100 people to the show receive a signed and numbered print (probably the skull-filled smily face below) for free! Holy crap awesome.

If you’re anywhere near my age, young or old of heart, you “remember” the Pokemon craze when it first exploded unto the western world. Pokemon Red, the less-cool Pokemon Blue, the ccg card game, the restaurant toys, all of it very fun. There was a cartoon, too! But none of it really went very much in depth, into the personal lives of the characters. Why would it? It’s a friggin kids cartoon. But did you ever notice, you heavy-hitting fans of the Pokemon world, did you ever notice that the main character, Ash, was a bastard child? Truly the world was not ready for this storyline, and thustly it was never explored. Until NOW!

Designer / illustrator / writer / cartoonist Maré Odomo had a super idea. It’s called “Letters To An Absent Father” and it’s all about the main protagonist of the Pokemon original series, Ash, and the idea that not only do you never see his father, he simply isn’t in the family picture. It’s totally a bad social situation.

Odomo explains in a nutshell:

The first strip was originally created for Cory Schmitz’s video game art + culture magazine, EXP. Not to be confused with Matthew Kumar’s exp. The first strip expanded into 4. I had to start including my name because they were being passed around without giving me credit. I’ve left the original strips as they are because they show my growth, which is more important to me than consistency. Also, I am too lazy to redraw them.

The 4 strips kept growing and now there are 12.

I felt bad about making a print-only comic so that’s why I made the wallpaper. It’s based off of strip #7 (the print-only one). #8, which is animated, was created as another little Thank You to my online fans. Since, you know, you can’t print out animated gifs.

You can view all of these strips below, plus there’s a mini-comic which you can buy with your money! Not only does it come in regular edition, there’s a customized version too!

Letters To An Absent Father
MINI-COMIC NOW AVAILABLE!
4.25 inches x 4.25 inches
Fits in your Nintendo DS cartridge case!

$3 for the comic, but for $13, I’ll draw you a picture on the notebook paper!

Several of these customized comics (with a little sketch) are shown below as well. Enjoy this expanding of a universe thoroughly. It is always a strange and interesting journey to do so.

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

Illustrator / animator Greg Peltz has a treat for the world. After having been inspired by a very similar portrait by illustrator Robert Mackenzie, who in turn was inspired by a should out to participate in a certain Star Wars Illustration Contest, Greg Peltz had to have been thinking he had some large, but cute, shoes to fill. And so he did. Three times he did it, and three times it’s loverly. Here we’ve got three fun and rather dapper portraits of Star Wars characters, one each of Chewbacca, C-3PO, and Boba Fett. Pip pip!

From Peltz’s blog:

Check out this amazing painting by Robert Mackenzie.

A victorian-style portrait of a wookie with a monacle? I mean, come on…that’s just made of win. I liked Robert’s painting so much that I had to make my own rip-off to frame and put on my wall.

You know what’s interesting about these paintings? That since Star Wars took place “A Long Time Ago”, much longer ago than our Earth and etcetera, in painting these characters in Victorian-Era garb, they’ve actually been modernized. Is this the opposite of turning a brand new computer into a steampunker?

These amazing entities are not for sale and I do not think they ever will be. But if you’d sneak yourself a little printout of your own and slip Greg Peltz a few bucks for all his super hard work, I think you’d not be remiss. Then of course, also follow Peltz’s blog for his further adventures in the design and animation world. It’s hot stuff.

June 27th 2010 update : Now there’s a Darth Vader Civil War portrait! What in the world? I’m gonna guess these paintings will continue to explode forth into the world as long as Peltz continues to get massive notoriety off them, so keep on clickin!

Double Update: NOW there’s a family portrait of Luke and Leia to go with Darth, plus a Jabba the Hutt to go with the other oval shapes. Moustachish.

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

We’ve been submitted some anonymously-photographed photos from the empty BUNGE tower over in Dinkytown, Minneapolis. These photos are full of lots of fabulous (and some terrible) graffiti and other silly drawings. All on the walls, all on the trains. From the looks of it, the train photos were taken right next to the tower, and the dark photos were taken inside the tower, probably all on the first level. You’ll notice a couple pics of some writing up at the top of the tower – this paint was up for about a week or two in early June, 2010, and’s now painted over. This happens up there from time to time.

Pretty sassy. Pretty dangerous.

BONUS: since we got our BIGTIME gallery going, we re-uploaded the photos from this project as full-sized. Take a peek through the gallery below for some hotness.

Now like when we get any set of anonymously submitted photos, you’ve gotta note that we DO NOT know who took them. I’m certain that it’s trespassing being inside this building, so the photographer more than likely does not want to be tied directly to these photos. That doesn’t mean you can go around taking credit for them, but it does mean you’ve got free reign over using them. Feel free to print them out, for example, if that’s your bag, but be respectful. Even illegal work is still someone’s work.

NOTE that we do not advocate the taking of any photos where you’ve got to be somewhere where it’s illegal for you to stand, and will not post anything of the sort (unless, of course, they’re submitted anonymously.) Stay safe! And don’t go out at dark. Be smart.

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

I might have to start a “moments in brilliance” category for this package cause there’s only one pic, but it’s magfantriffic! Made by the designer Daniel Costas over in Guarda-Pontevedra, Spain. It’s a package of chocolates! Employing the excellent concept of one whole being made up of a bunch of delicious parts, this box is smart AND pleasing in a bunch of ways. It’s made for the Visual Trans group, a company that focuses on… business… software… solutions? Idunno. Something like that. Chocolate!

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

Although the title of this post suggests that you’d be crusing down the interstate in what’s about to be presented here, I wouldn’t recommend it. Right here we’ve got one frajabulous vehicle that’ been around for overy 60 years. In that time, this most excellent zoomer, the Piaggio “Ape”, has taken on only a few different shapes, and many many different colors. Popular to paint because of their small size and relative inexpensiveness compared to other smaller vehicles, these Apes don’t only come in black and white. Pronounced “ah-peh.” The name in Italian means the same and the flying insect bee. Fun. Lovely. Excellent.

These remind one very much of the Kei vans we did a post on a bunch of months ago. Both very small, very cute, and very versatile when it comes to the possibilities for their unique size and shape. The first thought that comes to mind when you see one of these Ape cars is that they must be delivering pizza.

If you agree OR don’t agree with that, just take a look at the pizza delivery pods that the folks from my home city drive to deliver their “Galactic Pizza.” Small, speedy, cute, and best of all electric powered. The Apes in this gallery could use a bit more electrics and a few fewer gasolines, but that’s not the point at the moment.

The point at the moment IS the color, the variety of shape and use, and the overall super neatness!

This set is made up of contributions from the following photographers: Alexie Ballyhoo (above), J Helland, Unique View, Homer, Blubrando, Maurizio Boi, Bayernernst, Classic Copenhagen, Joost ijmuiden, Jovike, JensKramer, Trigger Retro Road Test, Turtle 50, Stephan Schmatz, Schockwellenreiter, Ciccio Pizzettaro, Jörg Kantel, RayNYC, Nathalierokx, Brr1940, Jelltex, Loungerie, Filigiake, Gebiblu, ApeLover81, Spidey 1978, Lu81 (this is the same APE as the one pictured above, photographed by Lu81 instead, Dr LopTop, CamilleouZoé, Alberto DF, JHelland, Gerald Smythe, Mrs Moloko, LuisaLuisa, RayNYC, Stijn, ApeLover81, and DEFINITELY be sure to check out the flicker group Planet of the APEs, as it is an ever-expanding collection of these funky runners, and the folks in that group love love love it.

AND additionally, there’s been a tip-off to this fabulous APE flying around London serving fresh and fabulous hotness to unsuspecting, then satisfied customers: Brewed Boy! — check this blog and/or head down to the bottom of the gallery for a pic of BB’s custom-painted green APE.

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

Here we are with four of the most fantastic headphones to ever peep the light of music. They’re made by the CandyLab Limited group, known in the advertising world for their top-class 3D rendering, animation, and illustration. Each of the phones you see in this post is for a campaign working for Nokia telephones, but the earpieces themselves work wonders for your eyeballs on their own. The set you see above is based on Jules Verne’s 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea. Utterly fantastic realities created by hands in the real.

Each of these headsets is modeled in Maya and rendered in Mental Ray. The cell-phones are modelled by Michael Strathearn and rendered by Fabrizio Fioretti, and all of the headphones are created by James Bowron. Included in these four are: Jukebox (pink), Reggae (rugged, boxes and cantops), Organ (pipes and fire), and Jules (horns and padding.) All of this is CandyLab.

These headphones remind a fellow of the positively undeniable benchmarks set by gigantic blockbuster films such as Return of the King or Speed Racer. Every time I take a peek at these headphones or those films I get all pumped up. If you watch the “making of” Star Wars that comes with the slightly-recent Silver-box DVD set, you’ll see an older gentleman who describes his first viewing of A New Hope in the theater. He says he sat down with his family for dinner and told them that his whole life had been changed. Believe that.

When people take the time to make something as magnificent as these headphones, even when its for something so trival as a cellphone advertisement, it matters to everyone, even the people who never get to see it exist. The bar is set, and it inspires everyone. Shockwaves are sent through the industry, advertising to graphic design to the people who aren’t even working for cash money profit.

Above and below we’ve got a gallery of the four sets of 3D-rendered headphones created by CandyLab for the Nokia phone campaign, plus a few extras from the CandyLab archives for some extra excitement. To get in contact with CandyLab for hiring purposes, choot an email over to jobs@candylab.co.uk, find them on http://twitter.com/candylab_uk/, or peek at them on their utterly lovely candylab.co.uk for shiny moving images.

NOTE: the last image in this gallery is called “Anti-Venom” and it was created by Candy Lab’s Creative Director Fabrizio Fioretti to promote the organic abilities of the studio. Modelled in Maya. Detailed in zBrush. Rendered in Mental Ray. Extremely hot’n'heavy.

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

Let me begin this post be suggesting that perhaps you were a child once. Let’s just go on that assumption. When you were a child, did you read books? I’ll go ahead and say yes. When you were a child, did you happen upon Golden Books? Probably you did. I’ll tell you someone else who had some Golden Books, illustrator designer Josh Cooley. He is a nerd, a movie fanatic, and a fantastic draw-er. He’s taken the time to mash up two utterly disparate items for the enjoyment of all: Golden Books for kids, and a collection of movie stills that couldn’t possibly be more inappropriate for that same group of kids. Check it out!

In a fabulous act of brilliance, Cooley, Story Artist at Pixar Animation Studios, has taken the Golden Books aesthetic and applied it to his favorite scenes from action, science fiction, and horror films. As many super ideas go, this one began as a joke, something to spend some time on, something to get a few chuckles outta, something even to post on these internets.

But lo!

People yelled at Cooley, HEY! These are really rad! If I saw these all bound up in a book at a comic convention, I’d throw my money at it faster than I’d buy an original chunk of fossilized Alien goo! And you can take that to the bank! And so he did. Cooley took that idea to the bank, pulled out a few bucks, and made a book.

The book, having just been announced yesterday, goes by the name “Movies R Fun!”, with, as you can see, the word MOVIES being in kiddie play blocks, and the R being the same R as in R-Rated films. Clevah.

This book, as Cooley says, this book, will be available soon, at Comic-Con California this year, probably at the Alternative Press Expo (APE), and on Cooley’s lovely blogspot blog if you’re lucky. Inside you’ll find probably, more than likely, everything you see above and below, PLUS MORE.

Joy!

Take a peek and don’t hesitate to flip out over the radical nature of the images.

BONUS: Also included are a couple of the golden patterns used for framing of the single-page versions of these fabulous prints. Can you say CPU background time? Yessir.

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

On the 16th of May, 2010, today, Ronnie James Dio, the king of our hearts and the one who brought up from hell the devils horns hand sign so that we might rock as hard as demons, is dead. Ronnie James Dio, who was known for his miraculous amounts of fantastic rock and roll music, has passed on. He will not rock in hell for all time, monitoring the kingdom of the dead with his all-seeing eyes and blackened hands.

All hail Dio, master of metal.

Dio’s wife released this message through the official Ronnie James Dio site:

Message from Wendy Dio

Today my heart is broken, Ronnie passed away at 7:45am 16th May. Many, many friends and family were able to say their private good-byes before he peacefully passed away. Ronnie knew how much he was loved by all. We so appreciate the love and support that you have all given us. Please give us a few days of privacy to deal with this terrible loss. Please know he loved you all and his music will live on forever.

- Wendy Dio

Below is a small gallery of Dio-related images. The rainbow illustration is provided by Abe Lincoln who drew it just for this occasion, and the pencil drawing is done by Alleycatsgarden, who is also metal. Please take this time to celebrate the wonderful world that Ronnie James Dio created, and continue to revel in the joy of his tunes.

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

The luxury lovliness store in Paris France by the name of Colette hired on a designer by the name of Anthony Burrill, to do their temporary window displays in blue, red, and white. Lots of stark, sharp shapes, recognizable images without being too simple, really looking nice. Matching the Colette look without impeding on it too much. You see the Colette mark up there, it looks just so slightly different and distinct.

You see here lies the challenge. Making an environment for the mark to live, the mark aka the logo that is, an environment that lets it live comfortably without being lost. Without being lost, but also giving the logo a nice nest to lift it up and keep it healthy.

That’s been done here! This same sort of display happens on the regular here in my place of residence, Minneapolis Minnesota, but instead of Colette leading the way we’ve got Target department stores. And I can tell you right now, from here, that they’ve got some of the best designers in the world working for them too. A few examples of Target windows in Minneapolis are included below as well, one of them courtesy of lightweaver, the other couple from Google street view.

BONUS: I was literally driving through downtown a few minutes ago when I realized I was driving past this very window, so I took a couple of drive-by pics. They’re at the bottom of the gallery now. Very pinky!

Red, white, black, perfect.

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

So this guy right here, Eric Lane, he’s a designer and a photographer. Here at World Famous Design Junkies, our, but moreso my, stance on designing is always Collect First, Then Design. Not in the traditional sense of getting all the examples of your project that’ve been done in the past, nay! Though that’s important too, you must collect everything that catches your eyeballs. While we’re living in this age where you can get yourself a digital camera for under a weeks wage then take as many photos as you want, no holds barred, you’ve got to go nuts. Totally crazy with the image collecting! That’s why Eric Lane is awesome. He goes all over the place and collects like MAD.

The collection you’re looking at right now is Eric Lane’s photo journey through Seoul. You’ll notice something inspirational or genius in every single image. A mark here, a line there, an angle up there or down there, everywhere.

Also if I’m not mistaken, this is the first time on WFDJ that we’ve had a collection of photos from the Seoul area! We’ve been to Japan, 16 places in the USA, hip hopping around more than one place in Europe, but no Seoul! Hooray for worldwide traveling clickers!

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

Oh so you don’t know who Pharrell Williams is? You LIAR! He’s a dude. For basically a billion years now he’s been producing music with his pals in Star Trek, they all make music in the band N.E.R.D., and they all bump up the brands BAPE, Billionaire Boys Club, and Ice Cream shoes. Two of those three are owned by them, or at least Pharrell, and the third happens because Pharrell’s got a sweet deal with Nigo. It continues now! He’s got a new watch, N.E.R.D. is playing some music at an air base, and Terry Richardson took some flash photos of Pharrell and Lupe Fiasco. I know you love these things.

This stuff can be found also at Terry Richardson’s Diary, if you’re into that sort of thing, or you could personally know Pharrell Williams which I totally don’t. Or maybe Lupe. Lupe know him!

And them all wearing BBC and A Bathing Ape prominently, all the time, it’s basically part of their brand trademark now. Will those brands continue forever? I don’t see why not. They’re still fabulous and the makers are still super rich. Let’s keep doin it.

The video below is a little interview with Pharrell about his second step in his “Perspective” series of what’s probably going to continue to be chairs. The first set of chairs looked to be two people’s legs in what appeared to be a sexually charged situation. This second one is more of a gears of war world of sitting. Of course, neither of these is as insane as his Takashi Murakami head.

Oh AND there’s something in here with UFFIE, who is a lady you’re all going to love some day. Some day you’ll ALL love her. Uffie.

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

For your life to be at ease. Console games for your extracurricular life. The following is a collection of console games photographed in a regular and magnificent manner. Look below for the set of games owned by collector extraordinaire Phil Penninger, in a set conceived and executed by Patrick Molnar. These photographs show the differences and similarities, but more than that, they reveal something interesting in the viewer in the way they show interest. I tell you the most important part about this whole project is the eyeballs that hover above it. Game on.

Copyright © Patrick Molnar / Concept, Photography & Design by Patrick Molnar / Collection by Phil Penninger

Right now there’s a compilation book in the world, at least one of those, information is a little hazy on if there’s going to be more, like to be sold. But, BUT! There is some definite arrows pointing toward a poster in the future, which would be just lovely.

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

Hello all you adventurers in graphic design land! It’s that time again! It’s time for a 100% patented by World Famous Design Junkies best ever of all time way to look at a location in a short number of clicks MINI TOUR! Yay! Today we’ve got a collection of photos taken with the exploration of the graphic landscape in mind of the Grand Casino in Millacs, Minnesota, USA. Slot machines galore, great carpet design, and yes, one of the most home-grown all-Minnesotan brand designs of all time.

These photos were taken about two years ago, on the second of January in 2008, but have never been online before (I assure you, I took them with me own camera.) Inside this casino, there are lots of slot machines. The people who design these machines are in one of the coolest industries in the world, working with interactivity, animation, and bright lights and the sounds of money and magic and music!

On the walls, on the ceilings, and on the floors, you’ll notice exciting yet muted tones. Low enough to keep you in the lull of the moment, yet lively enough to keep you awake. You’ll notice no clocks on the walls. Everything you see or hear here is meant to keep you on the floor by the machines, on the machines spending money.

All night long.

Then there’s the buffet. There’s only a couple photos of the buffet because I was eating. When you eat here, it’s usually on the tab of the casino, as you can win meals or get discounts pretty easily. The reason I was eating here is the crab leg buffet, all you can eat, lots of butter. You can see the Grand Casino branding on the napkins and in the bathroom on the soap dispenser here, very lovely.

Enjoy the night life! Or is it day?

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

Hello 2 U, miss kitty. I see you’ve got quite the worn from wear chainsaw there. How nice it is! The more you use it, the prettier I bet you thought it would not get, but nay! The character adds the interest. In this project from a lady artist who goes only by the title “Shelly”, the paint and kitty accents were added by hand, then worn down by hand as well.

Well played, well done.

We’ve had our small but fair share of chainsaw related posts in the past, but none so cute as this. No ultimate chainsaw collection would be complete without this one, if I do say so myself. And I do say that. What kind of collection would it be without such pop magnificence?

It is important to mention at this point the importance of the online news feed “Kitty Hell”, to be found at http://www.kittyhell.com/ – what a magnificent brand you must be to have blogs dedicated to simply locating and publishing all of the items you’ve got your name on. That is part of the inevitable fallout from having achieved the level of absolute brand dominance.

Can you say KISS?

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

Hello all you photo collectors, lend me your hands. Pray to whatever got you believe in and take a bunch of photos of the signs that let you know who you’re speaking to. The photos you are about to look through are here courtesy of professional Jessica Maullu, who identifies herself not as a photographer or a videographer or an artist or designer, but as a Visual Catcher. What an interesting way to describe it. Maullu! Keep on catching!

From Jesus, with love. Lots of photos from a collection Maullu calls “Sacred/Scared.” In this you’ll find photographs of holy locations, signs, symbols, and sculptures taken over 3 years, from 2006 to 2009 in a bunch of places including Prague, Madrid, Sadrinia, Como, and Milan. – In these places you’ll find what any photographer would call great hits.

Holiness is always a good subject for coverage.

NOTE: I am on the hunt for projects like this in different parts of the world. Jesus can be captured everywhere, and the whole world aught to be compared under the design junkie lens. Show your holy pho!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies under the influence 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.

Conan O’Brian’s having some troubles right now. He’s getting his head kicked in by NBC. So this dude right here, mister Mike Mitchell, did his part. He made a fantastic “I’m with COCO” card for use on these internets. And it’s spread like butter. But that’s not what this post is about. It’s about Mitchell’s patterns. Made with the same technique as the Conan pic, made patternish. Mixed media in real life, plus some digital editing.

These patterns are made for the world – to give worms – to ex girlfriends. They’re made for promoting Mitchell’s superb skills in mixed media. Also included in the gallery are a few more examples of pro-hype illustrations from Mitchell.

See Super Mario World and Mickey Mouse. Terrifying.

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

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

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

Mail, mail, slow, wonderful mail. Every once in a while you’ve got to utilize our socialized mailbox and delivery person system. And when that happens, you’ve got to go crazy! It’s important to bring the heat with heck-a creative energy. The one you see before you’s made by architect Nick Doermann and it’s got amazing folds and letters and symbols.

Yes, architect, yes. Even you benefit from the magic of typography. Witness as it unfolds into different compositions and composes itself into different additional fabulousnesses. It’s a card, its a banner, it’s a poster!

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

This is a bunch of photos from inside the airport in Minneapolis, Minnesota. They’re snapped by me, author designer Chris Burns, as the first mission on this amazing fact-finding mission in Albany, NY, and the surrounding areas. These photos are taken with the most extremely specific mission in mind: photograph a photo every 5 seconds or less.

It almost worked. Results below!

These photos taken Friday, November 6th in the afternoon, 2009.

Minneapolis International Airport. Inside.

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”

So lemme tell you this. These signs I have right here are from an old liquor store. You can tell because they’ve got alcohol all over them. I mean logos. Also I know because I got them from a liquor store. Take a look at the genius cleverness included in every card. And the type’s pretty pretty too!

These come from what was once Westside Liquor in Saint Cloud Minnesota. They’re some of a fad that continues to today, that being mutually beneficial ad cards, posters, standups, installations, made by the beer and hard liquor companies that advertise for them, but also add credibility and a professional look to the stores that carry them.

Seek ye the silliness and ye shall have the beer sales.

These are part of the World Famous Design Junkies collection of photographed signs that one of our most famous posts comes from: Sexist Vintage – photographed in an old garage, this time in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

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