Photo from North Minneapolis near the Quarry. This photo taken of a black and white sticker on a gas pump that’s no less than a stones throw away from Johnson Street. This type of sticker in simple black and white is quite common and has been common for a number of years in Minneapolis – mostly related to bands and their albums.
An epic story for a simple skateboard crash! Truly a strange sort of deal going on here in this box-o-shirt we were sent to review by LTD Tee! Inside a nondescript white plastic bag came a lovely cardboard box decorated with a hand-printed silkscreen in brown ink. The design uses both the illustration seen on the shirt inside as well as an epic tale of the artist/designer. Inside the box is a tiny stash of high-quality stickers as well as another bag, transparent with instructions, containing the shirt. The shirt itself is branded exclusively with the “LTD Tee” logo, printed inside the shirt above, again, the story of the artist Porous Walker. Continue reading
Let me tell you about the best little giant toy company in the world. Medicom. They’ve got contracts with some of the greatest toy designers in the world and they do not-hold-back! They make the greatest stuff ever! Lemme give you a rundown of their latest achievements. First, let’s talk about that KAWS Pinocchio and Jiminy Cricket set you see above. They were first blasted all over the internets by Arrested Motion who, when walking about a museum exhibition, spotted the little cuties. This was (is) The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum‘s first KAWS exhibit, as well as Brian Donnelly (KAWS)’s first solo museum show. Then there’s all sort of other toys like EAMES, Ren and Stimpy, The Clash Mickey Mouse… Continue reading
Well, the day has finally come. June 29, 2010. This marks ten full years since the release of one of the most addictive keyboard-and-click video games ever created. It was there, in that game, online with thousands of other players fighting, leveling up, collecting treasures, that I realized my obsessive personality. I believe every modern person has this sort of “disorder” to some degree, they call it Obsessive Compulsive Disorder if I’m not mistaken, OCD for short. Diablo II (aka Diablo 2) took hold of that piece of each of us, the people finding themselves part of this new internet community, and held on tight.
Ten years tight.
And then there was the Social Media. And the clicking. Continue reading
Each of the works above and below are, as the title suggests, made with permanent marker on paper. Each of them shows a bunch of video tapes or other cartridge game or video. What kind of realism is this? Some sort of modernism. When I first happened upon this project, I saw one of the tapes pictures and assumed it was a photograph. This was interesting, as collections of anything that involves packaging AND a dying or dead format of media, well, that’s gold to me and the WFDJ community! But lo! It was an illustrated image! And what’s more, it was permanent marker, which of course you know is heavy kitsch. Continue reading
A Bathing Ape, aka BAPE has a new shoe, Spring 2010, or some new colors, a style, whatever coming out this spring. It’s done in the same style as the Chuck Taylor All Star shoe, except the difference is it’s got a Bape logo. The logo is attached with velcro, too! What do you think about that? I think it’d be kind of inconvenient, like I’d be pretty prone to be losing it just walking my day-to-day. It’d get caught on a flower and get pulled right off! Continue reading
Holy crap welcome back to Graphic Design 1. Today’s assignment: How You’re Never Going to be Able to Design a Nice Book Cover. Designer Elsa Chiao scoffed at this assignment, and indeed threw it to the ground, smiting it as she did so. For Elsa Chiao excels at just that, the covers of books. She is so good, SO good, that this post is basically a shot-for-shot re-creation of her portfolio. You must see these books! Continue reading
Let me tell you about pizza in Minneapolis. We get our pizza in these spaceships. That’s all you need to know, right? Well heck then, look at all these pictures of them! If you need more, like need more information, I suggest you take a peek at the search results of Galactic Pizza in our extensive archives. If you just wanna see their delivery vehicle as photographed by yours truly, again, peek through the gallery below! Continue reading
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. Continue reading
A hundred and eighty, that’s 180, animal logos are being ENSLAVED! What’s going on right here is designer Karl Grandin is SETTING THEM FREE! Hooray! Into a sweater. Freed right into a sweater. The fabric in the sweater’s made using computerized knitting technology at the Nederlands Textielmuseum in Tilburg, then cut and sewn by seamstress Dima Stefanova. As of now, they’re a limited edition and not set for production. Sad! Continue reading
You always wanted to see Doctor House doing a little dance for Vicodin, right? How about seeing an ad for the 1970 mint Mach 5 motorcar from Speed Racer? Here it is. The international smartman Chef Guevara? Check. Of course, what collection of oddities would be complete without a comic-strip-style poster of Batman and Superman enjoying a quick yet sensual kiss? All this and more in the new collection of images by design funnyman…
Scuzzo! Continue reading
From the PITS of punk rock HELL comes this devilish tea brand, designed by the nightmare Matthew Alexander Manos! Experience that which cannot be contained by any governmental law. The irony runs deep in this evil taste, black font branded tea. So not nice, it’s made completely of deteriorating materials. Not for the pack rats! Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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! Continue reading
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. Continue reading
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.* Continue reading
For some of you, this is your second time hearing about the confederate flag Obama situation. For the rest of you, hello there! Get ready for a strange journey! Right here we’ve got one real-as-can-be, genuine as the day is long Obama stars n’ bars flag. For most of you, the instant reaction is going to be of disgust: the flag of the confederate states of america has and will always mean slavery and racism. But for the rest, you’re looking at another thing: why is Shepard Fairey’s HOPE image sitting next to that symbol. This can’t be real!
Oh it’s real, mama, it’s really real. Continue reading
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! Continue reading
Get your foot pullin up the pitch! Runnin so fast! Flipping around kickin the ball all over the place! When you’re sponsored by someone like Umbro football shoes, that’s what they like to see you do: go nuts! Go wild! They have you wear their football super-shoe, the “Speciali,” too, for ultimate football ballin power. And then they get smart. Real smart. They have a contest where you design the bottom of the shoe.
And then they stay smart. Real smart. They have D-brained specialists, aka the people I love to chum with, design addicts, set up real nice with a judges chair so that the most lovely shoes get gotten for the winners spot. And here they are! Continue reading
Ow gross that’s some snot there, isn’t it? Vannen Artist Watches is basically a super fabulously new watch making group. They’re tiny and basically totally all about making watches. And this grotesque bit of arm filth, this arm watch for your arm, it’s the super special edition limited edition Halloween watch designed by painter, poster artist, fine artist, and gearhead “Dirty” Donny Gillies. Uh and what’s that, there’s a special edition?
And what’s that, it’s TOXIC? Continue reading
Brand flippin new works from the design / art collective FAILE. The works contained in this post are dubbed (by Faile) to be the Wood Paintings set and will be formally introduced next week at FIAC art fair in Paris with Perry Rubenstein Gallery. Faile’s going to be represented by Perry Rubenstein in the United States from now on, their first show to be some time mid-2010. This set of fine art pieces is the first bunch to be produced and shown in corroboration with PRG. And they’re HUGE. Continue reading
Hot dogs! Oh my goodness hotdogs! Coney Island Dogs. That’s what’s up. We’ve got a place around here (Minneapolis, Minnesota) called Uncle Frankey’s. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. They make amazing Coney Island Dogs. Supposedly they’re better on the REAL island, but who knows! These people do. And when I say these people, I mean all the people who took the photos included in the super insanely huge World Famous Design Junkies Coney Island Sign Explorer Collection. Oh wow the signs. Look at them all! Continue reading
This duo of images is officially part of the “Hero” craze, they being the cover of a “collectable” case for DJ Hero’s Renegade Edition. Eminem and Jay-Z have tracks on this edition of the game, and they hired Studio Number One to whip up a lovely image of these two legendary music making faces. No word on if the images will be produced anywhere else but on the DJ Hero ephemera, but DO expect them to maybe make an appearance in some fine art in the future, as Shepard Fairey like to explore all options with images once he’s done the illustration work. Colors, mediums, rubyliths, everything and anything. Continue reading
Oh man I HATE IT when people are passive aggressive supreme. So much. So much do I hate such a thing. But I’ll tell you what I like. Green White and Black. As together as they should be, all day and night. Up in this project. It’s a ton of materials, like stickers, sticky-notes, and badges that allow YOU to make the most of your passive aggressive nature in just the most fantastic sticky-designish way possible!
Blame designer Ben Bours. Continue reading
So I went forward into the year 2000. Forward into the FUTURE. And I found this amazing bit of jewelry made only for the future. You will never see this kind of fashion again! Or you might see it again if we ever get to the year 2000. Maybe then. I’ll tell you how much I bought it for, too. I bought it for one Future dollar. From the future. Believe it. Continue reading