Toy collections. I know some people that’ve got some mad crazy ones. I think it’s amazing to have a huge one, but it’s best to have a precise one. One that inspires, one that encourages, and most importantly, one that creates an environment in which one can work effectively. For a toy designer, what better collection to have than toys and toy related ephemera. The rooms you’re about to explore belong to Tatsuhiko Akashi, founder and head of MediCom Toy.
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Oh joy, oh rapture! Oh hooray! Lego’s had their so-called “minifigs” in all sorts of costumes for years and years now, lovely, amazing, fabulous little guys. My favorites have been the Star Wars collection of course, but up until now, you’ve sort of gotten what you’d payed for. Why’s that bad? It’s not! It’s just not as HIP as buying a package with mystery contents! They’ve gotten hip though. They’ve gotten with it! This right here’s the LEGO Minifigures blind boxed series one! 2 B Reeleased early this summer. Woopie!
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If you’ve got some amazing idea, or pop culture crush, or fantastic set of images that you’ve just GOT to apply to as many mediums as possible, consider this: cookie cutters. Especially around and in the holidays, these are always going to be big sellers, even the lesser-holidays love cookies! I believe today that designer Beverly Hsu’s hit a bit of a jackpot, provided she slides through the font-ownership rules like a breeze, with these cutters made to produce cookies in perfect Helvetica letterforms!
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Welcome back to the Original Gangster days. Back when the copy machine was the only machine that was used to fire heat. Heated ink, slapped on paper. Business cards, made for trading, showing, distributing. Hand drawn letters, marks, stock images, and type. Fantastic design without even knowing it. The following set of business cards were gathered and scanned by art group “wearesupervision.” What a magical moment caught in what must be a masterful design collection. Where would one obtain such obscurities?!
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Let me tell you how to get your stuff all shooting in every direction on the internet. Take one thing. In this case, it’s a keyboard. Then you need another thing. Think hard about this one. It has to relate to the first item in some way, and in these modern times, it’d better be ironic. In this case, the second item is skateboard wheels and trucks.

Make you a skateboard keyboard.
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Let us now devour the poster works of Minneapolis design team LandLand. They’ve made it their mission to toss out the traditions of rock postermaking and act on instinct. The use the Force. But tossing out that tradition doesn’t mean tossing out the tenants of design and good artmaking. These skills are high and present up on this collection of masterpieces. Look for yourself at a few of em, then take a trip to Minneapolis, rock capitol of the world!
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Adam Koford is an illustrator who knows his space. He’s a comic artist who knows where his box is. He knows how important, essential, and healthy it can be to climb around in and cultivate a single culture. His is of these internets. Not just that though, cats. Cats and comics. Koford has a narrative running that contains two cats who are homeless, but know the solids they can do inside a single frame.

One joke each, always conscious of the media.
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Ohhh my gosh look at what we’ve got right here. It’s some illustrations. Lemme describe these to you: layers. Illustrator Joshua Agerstrand‘s got a knack for creating images that are easily separable into layers. Layers of color. Layers of lovely, screenprintable color. Oh my goodness you aren’t totally versed in the language of screenprinting? Oh goodness let’s take a look right here. Nutshelled!
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Welcome to the world that Ralph McQuarrie never intended. A world of stormtroopers. Willing volunteers, the world over, dressing their selves up for the greater good of the hypothetical Empire. Based in the universe of the Star Wars phenomenon, these human beings make it their business to be in the coolest club in the whole world. Take a journey with me, if you will, into the twisted and splendiferous world of the troop.
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Oh my goodness I thought the age was complete! I say now nay! The Gorillaz continue on! Five years after their last LP album comes this thing called Plastic Beach, in reference to the terrifying pollution-made floating islands in the ocean. Hope you know about those. Today’s the day the first song gets leaked to the internets. This first single song is called “Stylo” and features the same lead singer as before*, featuring Mos Def and Bobby Womack. Pump it on up! See below and above for the music you set your eyes to!
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Oh friggy it’s a set of prints from Shepard Fairey. These are called “Eye Alert” and are two separate eye prints, one left, one right, each of them 18″ x 24″ and an edition of 350. If you’ll take a peek at the iris, there’s a skull in there. If you take a peek at the tear below the eye, you’ll see an inverted Rod of Asclepius, aka the symbol most often associated with the medical world in modern times.

WORLD IN BLOOD – you think Shepard Fairey is worried about the state of Health Care in the USA today? I think so. Look below for larger versions of each poster.
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Being a boy in the late 80′s and early 90′s meant that I played with action figures. Like most the kids I knew, I had TMNTurtles, legos, and all that fun stuff, plus a bunch of He-Man figures. I don’t know where they came from, I never even watched He-Man! But I know the characters because I had the figures. The man who did the poster print you see above and below knew his stuff. He was an AVID He-Man fan. He knows so much about He-Man that he hypothesized the history of He-Man and did this print: “Mr. Villians Class of 1983.”

Classy.
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What a wonderful display. Chew if you will upon this new collection of illustrations by design group Geliografic that goes by the name of “Art of Innovation.” Weapons, ammo, and items of war set in still life paintings stolen from antiquity. Fear now the trends of war, or perhaps feel glad that G’s making fun of them. I’m personally like to note how weapons like these have become as commonplace in artwork these recent years as the items they’re set next to in these pictures. Tastes kinda nice!
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The Moldy Peaches are a group that sings lovely music in a very raw way. They sing simple songs, about very average and fabulous things. Sometimes with swearing, sometimes for childrens. And all of it wonderful. What we’ve got here is a full-hilt design for an album and world tour for the Moldy Peaches called Fruits in the Back Yard – New in the Neighborhood. Designed by superstar Petita Pou for Kimya Dawson and Adam Green.
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So I was about to do a post about the Moldy Peaches. I’m sure you’ll be able to peek at that in a few minutes. But on the way, I’d copied and pasted an image that, in the process, turned into a long row of digital nonsense. It’s really quite beautiful. In the gallery below is the whole thing cut up into pieces for you to take a look at or for free use on any project.
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When winter hits the midwest, the boards go away. I’m talking about midwest USA of course, but this sort of thing happens all over the place. This particular brand of skateboard gets my engine revving. I found out about it from the designer Francis Pelletier who’s spearheaded the design for the brand. La Vie! Look at the class.
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Yes! That’s what your whole body will be saying if you tune yourself in to the rockabilly culture of Japanese greaser culture. Photographer Alessandro Zuek Simonetti was cool enough to take the time to capture one of the events that keeps this culture lit: ABC Rebel Night! That stands for “Always Be Cool” and it takes place monthly in Brooklyn!
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A reduction in the excellent junk. That’s what this is all about. I am a collector of things. Tiny things, mostly, things that can fit on the tiny shelves we’ve got up in this apartment. The tiny things I collect come from the drawers, books, and boxes of people’s houses. They come from stores, from storage units, from under the boots of the average man or lady. I collect things that a design conscious person would blink their eyes three times at, in appreciation, adoration, or disgust. In this cleaning transition, photos were taken, one each for all of the 141 items taken off the shelf – several months of collecting.
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Should you ever find yourself in feudal Japan, you’re gonna need, NEED!, to know what symbols are what. And I’m not talking about signs for the bathroom and the sword hut, I mean crests. Badges that express heraldry in Japan since 900 A.D., peaking in production and diversity in the feudal age. Lots of badges made right around there in time. In this post there are over a hundred unique crests, each of them marked and categorized, each of them reproduced faithfully from the greatest book in the world, Ernst Lehner’s long out of print hard and soft cover symbologists dream book “Symbols, Signs, & Signets.”
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Go Nigo Go Nigo Go! Go, go, go, go! Nigo, Nigo, rappala, Nigo, Nigo, hook fashion addict. Go! Go! Go! Go! — A Bathing Ape brand has the fishy smarts behind it. Those people know exactly what they’re doing when they bait this hook. What you see above (and below) is their new collaboration with Daiwa (fishing gear brand) – fishing lures with Bape camouflage graphics. Not just to further your total Bape lifestyle, but for the irony of the lure culture!
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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.
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Crayon art. These are the works of Diem Chau. These are sculptures of real people, cut into crayons. Not just any coloring sticks, but Crayola crayons. Anyone that’s experienced grade school in the USA (and the rest of the world?) knows that if you’re not using Crayola crayons, you’re a total loser! But some families can’t afford those nice sticks. Or couldn’t. That is, until Crayola got smart and started selling packs of 24 at Target for a dollar. Now they’re the biggest crayon brand in the world, bar none.
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It struck me last night, wow, I am up this late, doing some crazy works, I’m almost out of steam, I wonder what it’d be like to get up SO EARLY in the morning instead? So that’s where I am now, freaking up at the crack of dawn, and what do I find? A bottle of Midnight Oil Red Bull! What a lovely package!
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This right here is unnatural nature at it’s finest. This is a show by the fabulous Josh Keyes, painter. The name of the show is “Fragment”, and the theme is transformation. Keyes is known for these paintings, unmistakably his: each of them with animals and urban fervor, each of them ultradimensional in their impossible flatness. Devour this newest set of 10 paintings, two of them unfinished, and witness the blocks cut out from another world.
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The stash is here. Cliff Chiang‘s sent us in a box of fabulous flats. Prints from the streets of comicdom. Everything we need to start our insane Cliff Chiang collection! First, a set of Atomic Bombshells postcard-sized prints. Then, an insanely colorful signed print of the whole gang from Dr. Thirteen: Architecture and Mortality (fear the Nazi ape.) Next, two more brilliant prints: Batman over Gotham and a totally bad warrior woman battling a minotaur that even if you don’t recognize, you’ll have to love. And the crowning jewels: prints of both the Electra/Flashdance record cover AND my favorite Batgirl/Purple Rain.
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